Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD
BILL [Lords]

ORPINGTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL
BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

STROUDWATER NAVIGATION BILL [Lords]

To be read the Third time upon Monday next, at Seven o'Clock.

MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; Amendments made to the Bill; Bill to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Tuberculosis

Mr. Watkins: asked the Minister of Health whether he has yet received the Report of the public local inquiry into the incidence of tuberculosis at Talgarth, Breconshire; and whether he will make a statement.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): I am examining this Report and will write to the authorities concerned as soon as possible.

Mr. Watkins: Would the Minister be good enough to expedite the decision on this Report, because we are going into Recess, I hope, at the end of next week, and I should like the local authorities to have a decision about this inquiry?

Mr. Macleod: I shall do it as quickly as I possibly can. There are one or two

other Ministries to be consulted, but there will be no delay.

Mrs. Slater: asked the Minister of Health how soon he is likely to sanction schemes for the establishment of sheltered industry for the rehabilitation of tuberculous patients, outside existing tuberculous colonies.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): Such schemes have to be considered in relation to other expenditure under the National Health Service and my right hon. Friend cannot offer any general approval. He will, however, consider any individual scheme which is put to him.

Dr. Stross: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that some areas are more distressed by this problem than others because of the high incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis? In her consideration of any scheme, will that fact be borne in mind, especially in a place like Stoke-on-Trent?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I understand that Stoke-on-Trent has been making inquiries. While, in the present financial position it was thought that immediate approval was unlikely, we asked the council for further information of what its schemes were.

Mrs. Slater: asked the Minister of Health how many local authorities have occupational therapy centres, other than in hospitals or settlements, for tuberculous patients.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: According to the annual reports of Medical Officers of Health for 1952, occupational therapy was provided by 11 local health authorities at centres or clinics and by 44 authorities at patients' homes.

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Health whether he will make mandatory the recommendations of his Circular 32/51; and how many local authorities have submitted schemes for the employment of tubercular patients.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: My right hon. Friend does not feel that it is opportune to make mandatory the submission of schemes by local authorities under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948. No authorities have submitted proposals for the employment of the


tuberculous under National Assistance Act powers, but four authorities provide employment directly under the National Health Service Act and others use facilities offered by voluntary organisations.

Dr. Stross: Does the Parliamentary Secretary agree that whereas we all accept that the medical officer of health and the chest physician are the people who know best what sort of work is suitable for the tuberculous patient who has treatment, after they have come to a decision work is not necessarily available? Will the hon. Lady ask her right hon. Friend to consult his colleague the Minister of Labour to see whether industry can absorb these 20,000 or 30,000 people in the way that other handicapped people are absorbed by industry?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The response to the invitation to submit schemes for improving the welfare and employment of the handicapped is going ahead and is under the close attention of my right hon. Friend and his colleagues.

Migraine (Research)

Mr. Houghton: asked the Minister of Health what research is being made into migraine; and what facilities exist within the National Health Service for specialist treatment of this malady.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I understand that a clinical trial of remedies used in migraine is being undertaken at one centre and that headaches of various types are being investigated empirically at a number of others. Facilities for the treatment of migraine by specialists are available in the normal way through the National Health Service.

Mr. Houghton: Is the Minister aware of the increasing interest in this malady and of the difference of opinion expressed by medical writers on the cause and treatment of it? Is be also aware of the work of the migraine clinic at Putney Health Centre? Is there anything there his advisers should study and extend?

Mr. Macleod: I shall be very glad to look at the particular experiment to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but there is a good deal of work going on, mostly under the Medical Research Council.

Private Patients (Free Medicines and Drugs)

Mr. John Hall: asked the Minister of Health if in view of the conflict of opinion between the British Medical Association and the Central Health Service Council's Committee on the question of the free issue of medicines and drugs to private patients, he will make a statement.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: In the present situation my right hon. Friend would not feel justified in proposing any amendment of the National Health Service Acts in this matter.

Mr. Hall: Is my hon. Friend aware that, quite apart from the B.M.A., the medical members of the committee which published this report also dissociate themselves from this part of the report, which denies to private patients the same rights to receive medicine under the National Health Service Act as are given to others? Does she not think it unjust that a citizen should be denied the right to a service for which he has paid?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I think my hon. Friend is misinformed. The report of the Committee on General Practice was unanimous; 19 of the 23 members were medical practitioners and 11 of those 19 were general medical practitioners. The particular difficulty in any suggestion of this kind is that of trying to exercise any proper control over excessive prescribing if doctors are not also providing general medical services.

Artificial Limbs

Mr Simmons: asked the Minister of Health what recent improvements have been made in the design, performance and comfort of artificial arms and artificial legs for below knee amputees now in the approved list for general issue to war pensioners and National Health Service patients.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Various improvements have been made, and others are under trial. New features are incorporated into current production as soon as they are approved.

Mr. Simmons: Having regard to the international reputation of Roehampton, can the Minister give an assurance that no reduction will be made in the amount spent on research in these matters in order to maintain progress?

Mr. Macleod: As far as I am aware no reduction has been made, and certainly this work has a very high priority.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that at the recent annual conference of B.L.E.S.M.A. disappointment was expressed at the lack of progress in improving artificial limbs? Will he count this matter as really important?

Mr. Macleod: Yes. About 35 projects are under trial at present. A great number of improvements are being made, although we should all like to see faster progress.

Mr. Simmons: asked the Minister of Health when the trials of suction socket fittings and anatomically shaped sockets for artificial legs first commenced; how many legless persons have now been supplied with these fittings: and what other improvements to artificial legs are under consideration or likely to become available in the near future.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Since these experiments began in 1945 nearly 500 artificial legs fitted with suction sockets have been supplied, and in addition several thousand shaped sockets have been issued. Other improvements, including new types of knee joints, pelvic band joints and new materials are still undergoing trial and development, but I cannot say yet when these will be generally available.

Mr. Simmons: What proportion of the suction socket wearers are Service patients and what proportion are National Health Service patients?

Mr. Macleod: I must have notice of that question. Perhaps I may be permitted to write to the hon. Member about this matter.

Limbless Persons (Treatment)

Mr. Simmons: asked the Minister of Health what several forms of treatment are now readily available to limbless persons who suffer from painful amputation stumps and phantom limbs; the degree of success met with in surgical and alternative forms of treatment and the extent and results of research into causes and remedies for this complaint; and to what extent experiences of physiotherapists, osteopaths and all who have knowledge of this special problem are being studied.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Both surgical treatment and percussion therapy are widely available and the degree of success varies with different patients. Research is being continued in conjunction with the Medical Research Council and other organisations throughout the world, but no final conclusions have yet been reached.

Cremation Service Certificate (Charge)

Rev. LI. Williams: asked the Minister of Health if he will take action to include in the National Health Service the charges made by medical practitioners for the second certification required by law in cases of cremation.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No, Sir. I do not think it would be appropriate to include this in the duties of a medical practitioner under the National Health Service.

Rev. LI. Williams: Does the Minister not agree that this certification examination, by the very nature of things, must be very cursory and superficial and that in the case of poor people the imposition of the two guineas charge is intolerable.

Mr. Macleod: The reasons for the examination are well known. I would not agree that it is necessarily a cursory examination. It entails a separate visit and a separate examination by a doctor who has not attended the patient before death and it is, therefore, not a service of treatment in the ordinary sense of the words.

Maternity Home, Reading (Installations)

Mr. Mikardo: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that a smoke pipe was inserted in the Dellwood Maternity Home, Reading, within 8¼ inches of a timber wallplate, in defiance of a byelaw which specifies that the minimum distance shall be nine inches; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.

Mr. Iain Macleod: It is by no means clear that the byelaw specifying a minimum distance of nine inches was applicable to this particular case. As I said in answer to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. F. M. Bennett), on 8th July, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and


Local Government is considering possible strengthening of the relevant byelaws.

Mr. Mikardo: Can the Minister say what is the source of doubt about whether it is applicable because, as I read it, subsection 1 of byelaw 63 of the Reading Borough Council would apply.

Mr. Macleod: Perhaps the hon. Member would like to talk to me about this later. I understand that there is another byelaw which says that the byelaw to which he has referred shall not apply in certain circumstances which, as I read it, include the circumstances of this installation.

Mr. Mikardo: asked the Minister of Health if he will ensure that installations of small domestic hot water supply boilers in buildings within the hospital service shall conform to the British Code of Practice No. CP 403.101 (1952).

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am advised that it would not be appropriate to require compliance with this Code of Practice in all circumstances, but I am considering what guidance should be given to hospital authorities.

Mr. Mikardo: While I thank the Minister for that reply and appreciate that retroactive action would sometimes be very expensive, may I ask whether he will have a look at the possibility of applying it to future buildings as is done, for example, by the London County Council?

Mr. Macleod: Yes. I think it is probably appropriate that I should draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government to what the hon. Member has said.

Prescriptions, Shrewsbury

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the Minister of Health the numbers of prescriptions which have been executed under the health scheme in Shrewsbury during each year since the scheme's beginning.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: My right hon. Friend regrets that the information is not available.

Hydrosulphosol

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Minister of Health if he will make arrangements to have available in this

country a supply of the American preparation for skin complaints known as hydrosulphosol.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend is not aware of any general demand for this substance from the medical profession in this country, where preparations with similar therapeutic effect to that claimed for hydrosulphosol are available at a fraction of the cost.

Brigadier Medlicott: Can the hon. Lady explain why it was that in a recent case, in order to provide a single prescription under the National Health Service, a supply of this preparation was obtained from America at a cost of over £130?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I can sympathise with the complaint of the hon. and gallant Member, but the very fact that the information became public was due to the vigilance of the particular committee in having the matter investigated.

Mr. Snow: Will the hon. Lady guard against these continuous and rather ambitious claims from America concerning new drugs, the results of which do not always bear out the individual claims?

Over-Prescribing

Mr. Page: asked the Minister of Health the administrative cost of investigations under Regulation 12 (1) of Statutory Instrument, 1948, No. 507, investigation of excessive prescribing, during the past 12 months; and in how many instances, as a result of such investigations, he referred a matter to a local medical committee.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The administrative cost includes some items which cannot be exactly determined, but is estimated to be under £15,000 for the past 12 months; during that period eight cases were referred to local medical committees.

Mr. Page: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that this rather elaborate investigation is producing results which are worth while?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I would point out to the hon. Member that the investigations are in two stages. In the first place, the regional medical officer goes to the doctor who is responsible for over-prescribing and endeavours to point out to him the effect of his over-prescribing


and to obtain his co-operation. In that respect about 200 doctors have been interviewed at a saving, as near as we can estimate it, of £300,000 a year. It is only in extreme cases, where doctors refuse co-operation, that they are referred to the committee, and that accounts for the low number of eight.

Mr. Langford-Holt: How is it that the hon. Lady was able to arrive at the answer which she has just given when she was unable to give any figures in reply to my Question No. 16?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I cannot go back to Question No. 16, but I shall be only too happy to tell the hon. Member the very simple answer afterwards.

Mr. Page: asked the Minister of Health in how many instances during the past 12 months he has, under Regulation 12 (7) of Statutory Instrument, 1948, No. 507, directed executive councils to withhold money from a practitioner; the total sum so withheld; and the total of the excessive cost of prescriptions incurred in these instances.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: My right hon. Friend directed the withholding of a total of £500 from three doctors in partnership. Independent referees estimated the excess cost of their prescribing to be £232 in a single month and remarked that they appeared to have been over-prescribing for a long time.

Mr. Page: Will my hon. Friend look into the procedure in those cases, in which it often results that a doctor is fined merely for a medical opinion which does not coincide with the majority of medical opinion?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I cannot accept the hon. Member's findings on that. These committees are properly constituted under the Act, and the evidence is put to my right hon. Friend, who comes to a decision of this nature only in comparatively grave cases.

Psoriasis (Treatment)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Health what arrangements are being made to improve hospital facilities for the treatment of out-patients suffering from psoriasis.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Facilities for the treatment of skin diseases, including

psoriasis, have shared in the general improvement in out-patient services. Such treatment by baths, light, or other applications as is considered necessary by the dermatologist concerned is generally available in the larger hospital clinics for skin diseases.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that very good work has been done in this field for some years at Leeds, and will he do what he can to extend that work to other regions?

Mr. Macleod: I am aware of the work to which the hon. and gallant Member refers and such treatment can be obtained at any large skin centre if the dermatologists think it appropriate to give it. I would not think it right for me to recommend a particular form of treatment because that would be interfering in medical matters, which should be no concern of the Minister.

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Health what information he has as to the number of people in England and Wales who suffer from psoriasis; and what specific research is being conducted on this skin disease.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Statistics of the incidence of psoriasis in England and Wales are not available. Research on skin diseases forms part of the programme of the Medical Research Council.

Dr. Stross: Is the Minister aware that probably about half a million people are suffering from this condition and that whereas the right hon. Gentleman gives the impression that everything can be available at the out-patient departments, the facts are that more money is needed for the provision of special baths and the special kind of treatment that is needed? Will the Minister, if asked, see that the regional hospital boards get this extra money when they ask for it?

Mr. Macleod: I do not think it is a good system of allocating moneys that it should be done on regional board requests for a particular service. I should have thought that the best system was to give what can be allocated to the regional boards and to leave it to them to decide what should be given to this or to any other purpose. I do not want to claim that facilities for this treatment


are available in all out-patient departments, but what I said to the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) was that in all large centres such skin treatment was available.

Priority Milk Scheme

Mr. Page: asked the Minister of Health whether he will consult with the 'Departments concerned with a view to arranging for the priority milk scheme to be operated by the local authorities in conjunction with the distribution of welfare foods.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend is informed by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food, that the machinery of the welfare milk scheme makes it unsuitable for operation by local authorities.

Mr. Page: Is my hon. Friend aware that the closure of the food offices has resulted in pregnant mothers having to go long distances for registration for priority milk? Would it not be more convenient if this registration were done in the local authorities' clinics where the welfare foods are being issued?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: This is a most difficult and complicated scheme in respect of milk, particularly as the dairymen distribute direct to the consumer, the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance issue the documents, and the Milk Marketing Board recoups the dairyman the difference in price and reclaims from the Ministry of Food. It is by no means certain that the existing powers of local authorities would be adequate to allow them to take over this particular work.

New Towns (Health Centres)

Mr. Marquand: asked the Minister of Health which of the new town corporations have sought approval for the establishment of health centres.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Responsibility for providing health centres under the National Health Service Acts rests with local health authorities. My Department has been approached regarding health centres in the new towns at Aycliffe, Peterlee and Basildon and understands that sites have been reserved at Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead and Welwyn.

Mr. Marquand: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the new towns present peculiarly favourable opportunities for experimenting in health centres and, moreover, that it is urgent to get on with health centres there lest private practice be so built up that at a later date it is difficult to introduce them?

Mr. Macleod: I agree that the new towns and some of the very large housing estates offer the best field for experiment in this direction. We have that very much in mind and we look at the applications as they come in.

Anti-Poliomyelitis Vaccine

Mr. Leather: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that a successful anti-poliomyelitis vaccine has been developed in South Africa; and if such a vaccine will soon be available in this country.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend is aware of attempts to produce a satisfactory vaccine in South Africa and elsewhere, and investigations with the same purpose are in progress in this country. These experimental approaches to a difficult problem are expected to be protracted.

Mr. Leather: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. While we are all aware that reports in the Press are usually years ahead of the facts, can my hon. Friend give an assurance that everything that is humanly possible is being done in this country?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I assure my hon. Friend that the most intensive research into this disease is being conducted but, as my hon. Friend has said, it is highly dangerous to have advance publicity on something which is not fully tried and which our medical advisers do not consider should be generally used.

Mr. Wade: Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be most unfortunate if the general public gained the impression that there was a vaccine available in other countries that was not available here? Is it not correct that while most encouraging progress has been made in research, we have not yet reached the stage at which we can claim to have a successful vaccine?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I quite agree with the hon. Member.

Health Service Dental Treatment

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Health what steps he has taken to ensure that patients receiving dental treatment under the National Health Service should be given a certificate to the effect that such treatment is accepted under the service.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Dentists providing such treatment undertake to conform to certain terms of service which include a requirement to give a signed statement of acceptance to patients. Penalties may be imposed for a breach of these terms, following a complaint to the executive council.

Mr. Beswick: While that may be the case, the facts are that in most instances the certificate does not pass to the patient. I agree that in many cases the relationship is so intimate that a certificate is not necessary, but will the hon. Lady bring to the notice of dentists that this requirement is still in force? At present, it is being overlooked.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: This Question and answer will give publicity to the point raised by the hon. Member, but the fact remains that if the patient has a complaint his proper recourse is to the executive council. The method by which the patient can make his complaints in that direction is stated on his medical card.

Mr. Beswick: The hon. Lady knows from the case that I have sent to her that by the time the issue arises the records have been destroyed and court action has subsequently followed. Will the Parliamentary Secretary therefore see whether she can do a little more?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: In the case to which the hon. Member has referred and of which I have had details from him, the patient did not take the method open to him and refer the matter to the executive council, which was his right He could have taken that method of lodging his complaint.

Association for the Blind (Affiliations)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Southern Regional Association for the Blind, unlike the other regional associations, has refused the applications for affiliation of the appropriate District Councils of the

National League of the Blind; and, in view of the fact that the Southern Regional Association is in receipt of public funds, if he will make representations as to the advisability of affiliation of the District Councils of the National League of the Blind.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: It is for the Association to determine what bodies should be affiliated to it and my right hon. Friend does not consider that it would be appropriate for him to intervene in an issue of this kind.

Mr. Beswick: Is the hon. Lady's right hon. Friend also aware that all the other regional associations accept the affiliation of the National League of the Blind and that the Southern Region cannot do its best work because the appropriate district of the National League is not affiliated to it? In view of the fact that this Association has public funds, will the hon. Lady ask it to look into the matter again?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: In reply to the hon. Member's plea, which on the face of it sounds plausible, I remind him that hundreds of voluntary bodies work with the Ministry. It would be a grave departure from our practice to tell those bodies how to run their affairs beyond the fact that we associate with them and work with them when we are satisfied that their affairs are properly conducted. It would be a grave departure from precedent if we told a body that it must or must not take any particular organisation into membership.

Mr. Beswick: Why is the Association not ready to accept affiliation? Why should it discriminate?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I must leave membership to the Association.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

City General Hospital, Gloucester

Mr. Turner-Samuels: asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the circumstances of hardship endured by patients at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital known as the City General Hospital, owing to the lack of a covered space between the operating theatre and the hutted wards of the hospital: if he is aware that the accommodation at the hospital is in


adequate; and what steps he proposes to take, and when, to remedy these defects.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am aware of the need for improvements here, but the regional board has not been able to include them in its capital programme this year because of other more urgent demands. They will be undertaken as soon as resources are available.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: Will the Minister not agree that this is a rather serious situation? The Chairman, referring to the matter as recently as 3rd July, said, with regard to the absence of this covered space:
In bad weather in winter time this journey is a hardship which no patient should be permitted to undertake.
Is the Minister also aware that the professional and nursing staffs as well as the management committee of this hospital are doing outstanding service for the City of Gloucester? Does he not think he ought to act as quickly as possible to assist them the more effectively to do their work by removing this defect?

Mr. Macleod: I am aware of those facts. The question of priorities is one for the hospital authorities, and the management committee, as I understand, has not put the scheme first in the priorities it has submitted to the regional board. If it is given the due priority the circumstances may warrant it will be expedited.

Meadow View Hospital, Whitehaven (Subsidence)

Mr. Anderson: asked the Minister of Health the position arising from the subsidence at Meadow View Hospital, Whitehaven, and the evacuation of patients to Carlisle and Sunderland; if he is aware that there is dissatisfaction of relatives and friends owing to the long-distance journeys involved in visiting the patients, both as to cost, and the difficulty of transport; what are the reasons for not transferring the patients to Haverigg Aerodrome, Millom, as soon as the subsidence occurred; and if it is the intention of the hospital authority to restore the hospital for normal use again.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The danger of subsidence forced the regional hospital board to arrange the immediate transfer of patients as an emergency measure to hospitals in Carlisle, Sunderland and

Middlesbrough. I know and regret the disadvantages to which the hon. Member refers, and several possible ways of finding nearer accommodation are being examined. Immediate removal to Haverigg Airfield would not have been practicable because of staffing difficulties. A decision on the future of Meadow View House cannot be taken until the final effects are known.

Mr. Anderson: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, first, whether the availability of the sick quarters at Haverigg Aerodrome has been conveyed to the Special Areas Committee, and, if so, what has been the decision? Secondly, can he use his influence with the Special Areas Committee to make special arrangements for the relatives of these chronic patients to be conveyed to places like Carlisle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough until they can be returned to the West Cumberland area? Thirdly,—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I should like hon. Members to know that this is a most important question.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member should bear in mind that every Member considers that his own Question is very important.

Mr. Anderson: Thirdly, is it the policy of the Special Areas Committee to return these patients to West Cumberland as soon as possible?

Mr. Macleod: On the question of Haverigg Aerodrome, permission has been given by the Air Ministry but that does not overcome the staffing difficulty, which is the accommodation problem, because many nurses at Meadow View were married and lived out and cannot be transferred. I will take note of what the hon. Member said on the other matters. I should like to add that I am very grateful to him for his help.

Barncoose Hospital, Cornwall (Improvements)

Mr. Hayman: asked the Minister of Health what are the principal items of deferred expenditure on improvements to Barncoose Hospital, Cornwall; and when these improvements will be undertaken.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I would refer the hon. Member to my answer to his Question of 15th July.

Mr. Hayman: Is the Minister aware that in the better part of this hospital the aged who are acutely ill have to be manhandled up and down stone stairs because there is no lift and that in the poor part of the building these is no provision for heating in many rooms and dormitories other than portable paraffin stoves? Will he review this decision again and try to sanction the necessary capital expenditure?

Mr. Macleod: I am sorry to repeat this, but any review of this matter is a question for the regional hospital board. Barncoose was put high by the regional board in the list, but not high enough for me to take this as one of the first schemes within the amount of money available.

Mr. Hayman: As the Minister's reply is so unsatisfactory the regional board, acting as it did—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Hayman: —I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at a suitable opportunity.

Out-Patients, Stoke-on-Trent (Waiting Time)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Health what are now the waiting periods for out-patients at the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary and the City General Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent, respectively; how they compare with the waiting periods of six months ago; and if he will reconsider the need to appoint an additional consultant physician in this area.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The present waiting periods for medical out-paitents at the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary and the City General Hospital, Stoke, are respectively two to five weeks and four weeks; six months ago they were 15 weeks and more than four weeks. I am informed that the Stoke-upon-Trent Hospital Management Committee will shortly review the need to appoint an additional consultant physician.

Manchester Ear Hospital (Children's Operations)

Mr. W. Griffiths: asked the Minister of Health what action is being taken to reduce the waiting period of 15 months being experienced by children awaiting tonsil and adenoid operations at

the Manchester Ear Hospital, All Saints, Manchester.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am informed that the regional board have arranged to transfer some of those on the waiting list to Wythenshawe Hospital, where the average waiting time has been considerably reduced in recent months, and are considering similar transfers to other hospitals.

Mr. Griffiths: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for that information. Is he aware that children have a longer period of waiting at this hospital than at any other in Manchester and that it is situated in one of the most densely-populated parts of the city? In addition to the action which the regional hospital board propose to take, will he also ask the executive council to consult the general practitioners with a view to their directing patients, in the first place, to some of the hospitals which have a smaller waiting list?

Mr. Macleod: I have tried by the means that I have indicated to get over the difficulty, because I realise that the facilities in Manchester are fully used. I shall be very glad to look into the suggestion which the hon. Gentleman has made.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Is it not time that the Minister took a special and personal interest in this matter, which is causing great anxiety to patients not only in Manchester but in the surrounding areas of Lancashire and also in Heston and Isleworth, as indicated in the next Question. Will he try to expedite earlier treatment of these children?

Mr. Macleod: I do take a personal interest, and I think that the answer I have given indicates that at least some improvements in that area have been made.

New Towns

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Health in which new towns new hospitals have been completed or are under construction; and what provision is being made for adequate hospital treatment in the remaining new towns.

Mr. Iain Macleod: It has not yet been possible to start the construction of any new hospitals in the new towns and their


need for hospital services is being met meanwhile by the use of existing hospitals.

Mr. Sparks: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a serious lag of hospital services in the new towns? About 12 months ago I put a similar question to him on this point, and, in view of the lapse of time, will he look specially into this matter because it is one which should be inquired into?

Mr. Macleod: We do take these considerations into account when we are making the capital allocation and the number of new towns in the different areas is an important factor in the matter.

Unused Beds (Staff Shortages)

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Health how many hospital beds are unusable through shortage of nursing and other staff in each regional board area.

Mr. Iain Macleod: As the reply contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Sparks: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been any improvement in this matter in recent years?

Mr. Macleod: I think this is another question. I have given only the details at the present time, and if the hon. Member would like a comparison perhaps he would put a Question on the Order Paper.

Following is the information:

The numbers of beds unused for lack of staff in both teaching and non-teaching hospitals at 31st December, 1953, were:


Newcastle-upon-Tyne
276


Leeds
728


Sheffield
956


East Anglian
481


N.W. Metropolitan
1,857


N.E. Metropolitan
1,716


S.E. Metropolitan
5,172


S.W. Metropolitan
1,997


Oxford
480


South Western
591


Welsh
442


Birmingham
2,175


Manchester
1,729


Liverpool
191


Total
18,791

Patients (Claims for Damages)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Health how much money his Department has paid in each year since the health services were nationalised, in damages for neglect or inefficient medical or nursing treatment.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Information in this precise form is not available, but I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table showing the total compensation payments of all kinds made by National Health Service hospital authorities in England and Wales in each year to 1952–53, the latest year for which accounts are available. These payments very largely result from claims for damages in the kind of case the hon. Member has in mind.

Sir W. Smithers: Will the Minister make sure that the Press get hold of these figures? As he is not willing to give them in open Session, is that not further evidence that under State control the health services break down when people are relieved of personal responsibility?

Mr. Macleod: I both resent and repudiate that supplementary question. I am publishing these figures at once in HANSARD, as is the normal custom, and not reading them out to the House. The Press, of course, will have them at once. I am absolutely certain that there has been no deterioration of any sort in the care which is given since the health services were nationalised.

Mr. Ernest Davies: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an estimate of the cost of the neglect of people's health prior to the existence of the National Health Service?

Following is the table:


TOTAL COMPENSATION PAYMENTS OF ALL KINDS MADE IN ENGLAND AND WALES BY NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE HOSPITAL AUTHORITIES.



Amount



£


5th July, 1948, to 31st March, 1949
7,560


Year ended 31st March, 1950
23,636


Year ended 31st March, 1951
38,556


Year ended 31st March, 1952
106,574


Year ended 31st March, 1953
152,590

Mental Hospitals (Capital Allocation)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health if he will repeat the special allocation of capital from central funds for mental and mental deficiency hospitals known as the "mental million";


and if he will increase substantially the amount to be made available for this purpose in the next financial year.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I intend that some special allocation shall again be available next year for capital expenditure on mental and mental deficiency hospitals, but it will not be possible to increase the total allocation.

Mr. Robinson: Is the Minister aware that although the "mental million" is a drop in the ocean, it is, nevertheless, a very welcome drop and there is great satisfaction that it will be repeated next year? But will the right hon. Gentleman think again about the possibility of increasing the amount, because so much urgent work needs to be done?

Mr. Macleod: I recognise the need, which is, as I am sure the hon. Member knows, very much in my mind. But it is also true, as the hon. Member said, that the "mental million," which will be repeated again this year, although perhaps a small contribution, is a very valuable one in this field.

Mental Nurses (Recruitment)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health what further steps he proposes to take to stimulate the recruitment of mental nurses, in view of the comparative failure of the local recruitment campaigns in most regions.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Harold Watkinson): I have been asked to reply. It is too early yet to judge the effect of all the measures taken to stimulate recruitment, but there is some evidence that in areas where the local recruitment campaign was conducted some months ago there has been an improvement in the staffing position of the mental hospitals since then.
The subject continues to receive the close attention of my right hon. and learned Friend in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, and is on the agenda of a meeting of the National Advisory Council on the Recruitment of Nurses and Midwives to be held tomorrow, 23rd July, at which further measures to encourage the recruitment of staff for the mental hospitals will be discussed.

Mr. Robinson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this problem will never be

solved until certain measures are taken, such as the establishment of the new grade of enrolled assistant nurse and improved pay and conditions for mental nurses? Is he further aware that the local recruitment campaigns—at any rate, in the region with which I am associated—have been an almost complete failure and that his Department was warned of this when the campaign was inaugurated?

Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Member wants to investigate the conditions for mental nurses he should put down a Question to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Robinson: I did, but it was transferred.

Mr. Watkinson: The reason for my answering on the question of recruitment is so that the hon. Member gets a verbal answer instead of having his Question go to the bottom of the list I hope he appreciates that. I should not like it to go on record that the recruitment campaigns have been a failure, because they have not. I agree that the results in the South are not as good as those in the Midlands and the North, but the details which I have, and which I can show the hon. Member, reveal that progress has been made.

EDUCATION SCHOOLS (PUPIL-TEACHER RATIOS)

Mr. Morley: asked the Minister of Education the pupil-teacher ratios in independent primary schools recognised by her Department as efficient, and in maintained primary schools, respectively.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn): In January, 1953, the last date for which figures are available, the pupil-teacher ratio for independent primary schools recognised as efficient was 12·3: the comparable figure for maintained primary schools was 32·3.

Mr. Morley: What steps does the Parliamentary Secretary intend to take to increase the pupil-teacher ratio in maintained primary schools?

Mr. Pickthorn: The only method is by the number of teachers being increased. My right hon. Friend is confident that the numbers are being increased and that the average size of classes in primary schools should begin to fall appreciably in about three years' time.

Village Institute, Stocksfield (Derequisitioning)

Mr. Speir: asked the Minister of Education for how many years past the use of the Village Institute at Stocksfield, Northumberland, has been denied to the inhabitants of that village by reason of its compulsory requisition; and, in view of the hardship and annoyance its continued requisitioning is causing locally, when she intends to arrange for this institute to be set free for its proper use.

Mr. Pickthorn: This Institute has been held under requisition since 1941. My right hon. Friend would like to see it restored to its ordinary use, but if it were released now the supply of school meals to a large number of school children would have to be stopped.

Mr. Speir: But is that not an entirely unsatisfactory answer? Without trying to apportion blame, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he does not think it is most unreasonable that the 2,000 inhabitants of this village should be denied the use of their village hall, and will he see whether steps can be taken so that it can be freed for their use in the forthcoming winter?

Mr. Pickthorn: The building is used as a central kitchen which supplies about 1,100 meals daily for 14 schools. I am informed that to build something specifically to take the place of that hall would cost £25,000 or even more. My right hon. Friend is anxiously reviewing the position in this and similar cases, and it is clear that before long some alternative arrangements should be made.

Mr. Speir: In view of the unsatisfactory and discouraging nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter again at the earliest opportunity.

School Meals

Sir R. Acland: asked the Minister of Education whether she will give an assurance that in all cases where the allowance of 11 oz. per week for school meals when reasonably purchased exceeds the former cash allowance, the excess will be recognised by her for unit cost purposes.

Mr. Pickthorn: Yes, Sir, so long as the cost is reasonable.

School Transport (Inspection)

Sir R. Acland: asked the Minister of Education whether she will make provision that all vehicles hired by local education authorities for the transport of school children shall be subject to some form of inspection to ensure their mechanical fitness for the work.

Mr. Pickthorn: No, Sir. In the case of those classes of vehicle which are not already subject to periodic statutory inspection, my right hon. Friend thinks it best to leave local education authorities to choose their own method of satisfying themselves that contractors will provide vehicles which are roadworthy.

Sir R. Acland: But is the Minister aware that a constituent of mine was nearly killed in one of these vehicles, because of neglect in this matter, that I have since had a series of buck-passing letters from the Ministry about this case, and that I was assured only three weeks ago that the same vehicle, in which was a party of children, ran downhill backwards owing to the cylinder head blowing off and because the brakes were not working? [Laughter.]

Mr. Pickthorn: I do not think that road accidents are funny. All motor vehicles are required by regulations made under the Road Traffic Acts to be in roadworthy condition. The Kent local education authority provide, in their contract, that the contractor will be responsible for the safety of the children from the time they enter his vehicle until they are put down by him.
I am not quite sure whether my right hon. Friend is aware of the second case to which the hon. Baronet has referred, but she is aware of the first one and has the deepest sympathy with the child and with the relatives of the child. On the whole, however, she still thinks that these matters are best left to local education authorities, who must be presumed to be able to manage such things.

Mr. H. Morrison: May I ask the hon. Gentleman, in view of what is, from my point of view as a local government man, the excellent doctrine of leaving it to the local education authority, whether he would be prepared to advise his right hon. Friend that this excellent doctrine might be extended to the London County Council in respect of the Kidbrooke Comprehensive School?

Mr. Pickthorn: That is quite a different question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, because it is (a) not quite the same principle, and (b) the application of the principle must vary very much according to the matter in hand. My right hon. Friend, or even I myself, would be willing to discuss that question with the right hon. Gentleman at any appropriate time, but not on this Question.

School Building Programme

Mr. Morley: asked the Minister of Education the total capital sum of the school-building programme allocated to local education authorities for the year 1955–56.

Mr. Pickthorn: The estimated value of the school building programme for 1955–56 is approximately £45,000,000.

Mr. Morley: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that at a recent conference of the Association of Education Committees, and in a recent statement in the journal of that Association, it was stated that the local authorities had applied for £88 million of school building for that year, and that the allocation provided will not be sufficient to carry out even the meagre provisions of Circular 245? Will the hon. Gentleman urge his right hon. Friend substantially to increase the allocation?

Mr. Pickthorn: My right hon. Friend is satisfied that, in general, the essential requirements of Circular 245 can be met by local education authorities—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—within the limits of the building programme allowed. As to the comparison between the proportion allotted and the amounts asked for, it is fair to remember that not all education authorities are equally scrupulous—[An HON. MEMBER: "Whitehall knows best."]—in putting up their building suggestions within the conditions of Circular 245; also, not all of them have the same form of doing so, so it is not possible to allocate a sum proportionate to that requested.

Secondary School Places

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Education how many secondary school places are now under construction; and what increase this represents on the number being constructed in October, 1951.

Mr. Pickthorn: On 30th April last there were 215,050 new secondary school places under construction. This is an increase of nearly 56 per cent. over the corresponding figure for 1st October, 1951.

Mr. Swingler: Although any increase of activity under the present Minister is an occasion for surprise and gratitude, is the hon. Gentleman aware that the local authorities are apprehensive about this situation because the Minister has refused to approve their plans of the basic minimum number of places to provide for increasing secondary school population? Will he, therefore, revise the school building programme this year to provide an adequate number of places and an adequate increase for the higher population?

Mr. Pickthorn: The reply to the last part of that supplementary question is that the assumption cannot be accepted and the answer, therefore, cannot be "yes." The answer to the earlier part is in the figures for contracts completed during the last three years: £251 million in 1951; £35·1 million in 1952; and £42·1 million in 1953.

Mr. Gower: If 10,000 separate bricks were laid on 10,000 separate sites—

Mr. Speaker: Order, order. This sounds much more like a question for the Minister of Works.

Mr. Gower: On a point of order. I thought the question I was asking was absolutely pertinent to this matter, Sir. May I complete my question?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's question was certainly hypothetical. He started with the word "If."

School, Wexham Court Farm Estate

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Minister of Education on what grounds permission has been refused to the Buckinghamshire education authority to build a junior school during 1955–56 for 480 children resident on the Wexham Court Farm estate.

Mr. Pickthorn: The authority did not ask my right hon. Friend to include this school in their 1955–56 building programme or in the reserve list to that programme.

Mr. Brockway: If the Minister is still responsible for this Department, would she be ready to meet the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) and myself about this matter? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on the Wexham Court Farm estate no school is being built for 480 children and that on another estate in Slough two schools are to be built where there will only be 100 children? Is it not possible to make some adjustment?

Mr. Pickthorn: My right hon. Friend is quite aware of what is happening at Wexham Court Farm estate. As I say, this was not asked for on the programme or on the reserve list. My right hon. Friend has been told that this project will be the subject of a future application. When she receives such an application, she will, of course, consider it in the most careful way, and I have no doubt that if the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) desire to meet her to explain matters she will be only too pleased to listen to them.

Grammar School, Keynsham

Mr. Leather: asked the Minister of Education when it is hoped to start building the new grammar school at Keynsham, Somerset; and the number of pupils it will accommodate.

Mr. Pickthorn: The Somerset local education authority are designing this school for about 330 children. They hope to start building in the autumn, but the land which they have chosen has been made the subject of a compulsory purchase order, and my right hon. Friend is at present considering what her decision on the order should be.

Mr. Leather: While ensuring that no more land is taken under the compulsory purchase order than is absolutely necessary for the jab, will my hon. Friend see that the county education authority is urged to press on as quickly as possible with this project, as the need for it is long overdue?

Mr. Pickthorn: I have just said that my right hon. Friend is in a kind of quasi-judicial position in the matter, and I do not think I should add anything to my original answer.

GERMANY (PRINCESS MARGARET'S VISIT)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Prime Minister which Government Department was responsible for the detailed arrangements in connection with the Royal visit last week to the British-occupied zone in Germany.

The Prime Minister (Sir Winston Churchill): It was arranged last February for Her Royal Highness to visit British Forces in Germany, in particular the members and families of regiments of which she is colonel-in-chief. The detailed arrangements were made by the Service Departments. It was natural that the President of the Federal Republic should receive and honour Her Royal Highness and arrangements in this connection were made through the Foreign Office.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Prime Minister aware that various social and political aspects of those detailed arrangements have caused controversy in which Her Majesty's Government should not have implicated any member of the Royal Family?

The Prime Minister: The text of the speech made by Princess Margaret was approved beforehand by the Foreign Office.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS (NEWS LEAKAGES)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to make a statement arising from his investigations into how the mid-day editions of three London newspapers on Thursday, 15th July, contained full details of the statement that he subsequently made to the House of Commons, concerning the abolition of the Ministry of Materials.

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to the statement which I made on Tuesday.

Mr. Lewis: I heard both that statement and the original statement that the Prime Minister made. But would he look again at "The Times" and the three mid-day papers, when he will see that they give full details of the statement which he made later that afternoon?

The Prime Minister: I have been looking into the past history of these matters and I find that the Leader of the Opposition, who is not in his place this afternoon, said, on 8th November, 1945, that the Labour Government could not be held responsible for intelligent or unintelligent anticipation or imagination in any section of the Press.

Mr. Lewis: In the Prime Minister's reply and in his original reply he said that his Department bad informed the Press. Are we to take it that his Department is now responsible for giving, prior information to the Press?

The Prime Minister: When questions are asked about a subject, I think it is perfectly proper that the officer in charge of Press relations should say that a statement would be made in the afternoon. There is nothing in that.

Mr. H. Morrison: If the right hon. Gentleman has still some unused material or ammunition left would he be good enough to let me know so that I can advise my hon. Friend to put down another Question?

The Prime Minister: I fully realise how hard up the Opposition are for wild geese.

ANGLO-EGYPTIAN NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the divergence of opinion held concerning the question of the Suez Canal Zone, he will give an assurance that before Her Majesty's Government reaches agreement with the Government of the Republic of Egypt on the withdrawal of British troops from the Canal Zone, Parliament will have an opportunity of debating any proposed agreement, and that, in the event of the House of Commons being on Summer Recess when the proposed agreement is made, he will take steps for the recall of Parliament so that this may be debated.

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to the answer I gave to the hon. Member on Tuesday.

Mr. Lewis: As there has already been one resignation from the Conservative

Party, and the Chairman of the Conservative Services and Defence Commitee, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Leicester, South-East (Captain Waterhouse) has resigned from that office, and there is a wide divergence of opinion, is it not right and proper that there should be a full and frank debate in this House so that we can see what the views of the Government are, whether they have got the support of their back benchers and whether the 40 Members will revolt and resign as they have threatened?

Captain Waterhouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that I can ask my own questions on this subject without any assistance from the hon. Member opposite? In view of the fact that the Foreign Secretary, in December of last year, gave an assurance that the heads of agreement would be brought to the notice of the House and, also, that he would not feel himself precluded from proceeding to negotiate the main Treaty, now that we are going into recess for 10 weeks does the Prime Minister not agree that it would be desirable to give us an assurance that the House would be recalled if an agreement were reached on this extremely important issue, which affects not only this country but the whole Commonwealth?

The Prime Minister: The Lord Privy Seal will refer to that matter when he answers a question on the business for next week.

AGRICULTURE MARKETING BOARDS

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Prime Minister whether he will include producer marketing boards set up under the Agricultural Marketing Acts, 1931–49, in the terms of reference of the Select Committee to be set up to examine the running of nationalised industries.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The problems, character and organisation of agriculture marketing boards are quite different from those of the nationalised industries.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the Prime Minister aware that the object of this Question is to prevent the spread of the Crichel Down disease?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. H. Morrison: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 26TH JULY—Supply [26th Allotted Day]—Report:

Debate on Education in England and Wales.

At 9.30 p.m. the Report stage of all oustanding Votes will be put from the Chair.

Motions to approve: Transfer of Functions (Ministry of Materials) Order.

White Fish Subsidy (United Kingdom) Scheme.

TUESDAY, 27TH JULY—Lords Amendments: Television Bill.

Landlord and Tenant Bill.

Baking Industry (Hours of Work) Bill.

Report and Third Reading: Charitable Trusts (Validation) Bill [Lords].

WEDNESDAY, 28TH JULY—Second Reading: Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill.

Debate on Steel until about 7 o'clock.

THURSDAY, 29TH JULY—Committee and remaining stages: Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill.

Debate on Disarmament until about 7 o'clock.

The subjects to be debated in the latter parts of Wednesday and Thursday's Sittings will be announced later.

If all necessary business has been disposed of, including any further Amendments to Bills which may be received from another place, it is hoped to adjourn for the Summer Recess on Friday, 30th July.

Hon. Members: Until when?

Mr. H. Morrison: We shall come to that in a minute.
We propose to put a Motion on the Order Paper in conection with the debate on steel during the first half of the day on

Wednesday. It will be noticed that the Lord Privy Seal has announced that the two debates on the Consolidated Fund Bill will terminate at 7 o'clock, or at least that the business allocated will terminate then. In the light of representations made by back benchers, we have come to the conclusion that, since Wednesday and Thursday are Opposition days, the second half of each day should be available to back benchers to raise constituency grievances and problems, as has often been the case, and we have arranged accordingly.
May I ask the Leader of the House whether he is in a position to state the date of the return of the House after the Summer Recess and whether, in accordance with the usual undertaking, the Government will be willing to consider recalling the House at an especially early date if the situation as regards public affairs at home and abroad warrants that? Would the Government, in the usual way, consider representations by the Opposition in that respect?

Mr. Crookshank: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for telling me about the Motions on Wednesday. That business, of course, will take place after the formal Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill has been obtained. As to the date on which We return, I hope that hon. Members will excuse my not letting them know until early next week. Standing Order No. 112 gives Mr. Speaker power to recall and the Government can be trusted to do their duty in that matter.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Does the announcement regarding the Consolidated Fund Bill mean the partial restoration of Private Members' pre-war rights? If so, may I at last express my thanks to whoever is responsible for that partial restoration? I suggest that the Leader of the House invites hon. Members to make suggestions to Mr. Speaker, so that we may have an orderly debate.

Miss Ward: As there seems to be some time available next week, though it is at the disposal of the Opposition, would it be in order for me to raise the Motion on the Order Paper standing in my name, on the grievances of small income groups, a subject which had no attention at all in yesterday's debate?

Mr. Crookshank: It is not for me to say what is in order or not in order. I think that what the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) had in mind, with which I entirely agree, was that after the official Opposition had taken a certain amount of time on that day for a Motion which they wish to put on the Order Paper, we would then pass to the Motion for the Adjournment. What subjects would be discussed on that Motion would no doubt be a matter for agreement and consultation between the usual channels.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Do we take it that the Mines and Quarries Bill must wait until after the Recess, and take second place to television?

Mr. Crookshank: No, Sir. The right hon. Gentleman need not make any such deduction. What we have to do is to deal with Amendments from another place to the Bills which they send down to us.

Captain Waterhouse: Am I to understand that the general statement on business which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has just made was the statement to which the Prime Minister referred a few minutes ago? If so, it does not help us very much. We had hoped that on a matter to which, as my right hon. Friend knows, we attach very great importance we would have a specific assurance—[HON. MEMBERS: "Who is ' we '? "] The House and the country. We should have a specific assurance that the House would be recalled if an agreement were arrived at.

Mr. Crookshank: This matter was raised in the same context just before the Christmas Recess and the Foreign Secretary made a considered statement on 17th December. That statement still stands.

Mr. H. Morrison: With regard to the question asked by the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward), may I make it clear that we were proposing that the two half days should be left for back benchers to raise their constituency grievances?

Miss Ward: I am a back bencher.

Mr. Morrison: Yes, I know. I appreciate that nobody could be more of a back bencher than the hon. Lady, but

we were not proposing to afford facilities for Motions to be put before the House. The subjects discussed would depend upon what back benchers caught Mr. Speaker's eye and we hoped to have a free-for-all.

Mr. Patrick Maitland: Is my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House aware that the situation to which the Foreign Secretary referred last December is now materially altered and that new negotiations are under consideration and causing great anxiety throughout the country?

Mr. Crookshank: It may be that they are a continuation of previous negotiations, but what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was laying down was what would be the conduct of the Government in certain circumstances and that applies equally here. For the day to which my right hon. Friend referred as Christmas, I would say that we could substitute the Bank Holiday.

Mr. S. Silverman: The Leader of the House, referring to Motions next Wednesday, said that they would be taken after the formal Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill. On what authority does the right hon. Gentleman assume that the Second Reading would be formal? Does he mean that the Bill would be taken and the Closure moved early? Is it not exempted business, on which it has been customary for a long time for Parliament to debate just those issues to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) was referring?

Mr. Crookshank: Perhaps the hon. Member has misunderstood the situation. The time available, of course, is entirely a matter for the Opposition. Instead of having a debate on general topics on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, which is quite a normal process, the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) has indicated that the Opposition would prefer not to do that, but to let us have the Bill formally, and pass to a debate on the lines which the right hon. Gentleman suggested. If the Opposition wanted to do it the other way, naturally the Government would not disagree.

Mr. Silverman: On a point of order. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I had not misunderstood the position at all, but I understood it only too well.


What I want to ask you, Mr. Speaker, is whether it is competent for the usual channels or anyone else to come to an agreement about a matter which must be within your jurisdiction and which affects the rights of every hon. Member of this House, back bench and Front Bench alike? The Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, Second Reading, Committee stage, Report stage and Third Reading, are the traditional occasions for raising every kind of subject that has not been covered otherwise, especially administrative subjects. The House could sit all night on those occasions to deal with outstanding matters. May I ask you, Sir, what is the authority or competence of anyone, outside the House as it were, to come to an agreement whereby the rights of every hon. Member are imperilled?

Mr. Speaker: So far as I am concerned, I have just to administer the Standing Orders. What the hon. Member has said about the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill is quite right, but it is frequently the case that arrangements are made for the convenience of the House. I express no opinion on that, because it has nothing to do with me.

Mr. H. Morrison: May I be permitted to say that someone has to arrange these things for the best convenience of the House and the Opposition Front Bench must discharge its collective responsibility according to the wishes of the House? That we have done. We think it is important that the activities of the Government in regard to steel should be debated, and debated at the proper time. I must ask my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) to realise that we have done the best we could for all parties in the House, including back benchers. May I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House that on Thursday, on the Committee and the remaining stages of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, disarmament will be the subject of debate until 7 o'clock, but there is no Motion and, therefore, it will be a free issue. We have our duty to do and are doing it in the best way we can for our country and party. I hope there will be no difficulty about this, because it would muddle the whole time-table for those two days.

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to the points which I raised with you, Mr. Speaker, and arising out of what my right hon. Friend said, may I point out that this is not a matter in which anyone is complaining about anyone else?

Mr. Morrison: That is fine.

Mr. Silverman: If it were a subject for complaint, my right hon. Friend knows me well enough to know that I would not hesitate to make it.

Mr. Morrison: Publicly or privately.

Mr. Silverman: What I am seeking to ensure is that these arrangements for the sake of tidiness and for the convenience of the parties concerned are not allowed to detract in the least from what are the proper Parliamentary accompaniments and traditions upon which we all rely. Whether those rights are exercised or not, what I am seeking to safeguard is whether the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill is taken formally early in the day or late at night is a matter for the House to decide, and not to be arranged through the usual channels or by anyone outside.

Mr. Speaker: That has nothing to do with me. If arrangements are made in the usual proper way, I try to give effect to them so far as they are in order, but I have not understood that anything out of order has been suggested. If the hon. Member differs from what has been said, he must argue it out with someone else, not with me.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Has the Leader of the House considered a Motion on the Order Paper—signed by 88 hon. Members on both sides of the House, but unfortunately, not by any right hon. Members—calling attention to the growing tendency for Privy Councillors to monopolise the time of the House? Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any possibility of the Government finding time, before the House rises for the Summer Recess, to discuss whether Privy Councillors should enjoy automatic privileges in that respect?

Mr. Crookshank: I am afraid not: and if there were such an opportunity probably all the Privy Councillors would want to take part in it.

Captain Waterhouse: I am sorry to have to press my right hon. Friend again,


but is he aware that circumstances of today, when we are going into recess for no fewer than 10 weeks, are very materially different from those when the Foreign Secretary made his statement? If it is really possible that an agreement might be arrived at on the heads of agreement before the House has an opportunity of seeing it all then, in those circumstances, I earnestly urge my right hon. Friend to give us some further assurances.

Mr. Crookshank: I have done all I could in making the position clear.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a Motion on the Order Paper welcoming the ceasefire in Indo-China and expressing our gratitude lo all who took part? Can the right hon. Gentleman give us an opportunity of expressing our thanks?

Mr. Crookshank: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is proposing to make a statement. No doubt the hon. Member will cheer when he gets up.

Mr. Keenan: Following on what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood), if, during the coming week, I desire to participate in one of the debates on the many subjects which are to be raised, what have I to do to get in, Sir? Must I write to you, or send you a telegram? I find the greatest difficulty in getting in, while others can get in even though they do not sit in the House from time to time.

Mr. P. Williams: On a point of order. Can the House have a clarification on a point with reference to the Recess? On 17th December last year the Foreign Secretary made it quite clear that the Government were trying to negotiate heads of agreement with the Egyptian Government, and went on to say:
if we reach these heads of agreement, then the House will have every opportunity to debate them"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th December, 1953; Vol. 522, c. 689–90.]
Are we to understand that the House will still have an opportunity of debating those heads of agreement before any agreement is signed?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

INDO-CHINA (GENEVA AGREEMENTS)

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Anthony Eden): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the Geneva Conference on Indo-China.
When I last spoke to the House, I gave an account of the first stage of the Conference. The House may now wish to hear something about the agreements which were finally reached at Geneva on 21st July.
First, there are three agreements containing the detailed provisions for a cease-fire in each of the three States of Indo-China. These were signed yesterday by the representatives of the Military Commands of the two sides. The full texts are not to be made public for the present. I regret this necessity because publication would enable a clearer view to be taken of our work. The dates of the cease-fire have, however, been fixed. They are spaced in time in order to meet conditions in different parts of Indo-China. The House will therefore understand that there must be some delay in publication to enable the necessary orders to be transmitted to the scattered forces in the various areas concerned in a country where communications are limited.
Then there is the final declaration of the Conference. This takes note of the military agreements and of a number of declarations made by individual delegations on separate points. It also records an undertaking, by each member of the Conference to respect the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of the three States of Indo-China.
In Viet Nam, arrangements have been made for the progressive regrouping, after the cease-fire, of the forces of the two sides north and south of a temporary military demarcation line, near the 17th parallel. This regrouping will be completed within 300 days. As a result, French forces will have to evacuate the important area which they now hold in the north. On the other hand, Vietminh forces will have to be withdrawn from large areas in central and south Viet Nam, in some of which they have been established and in control for eight years.
It is further agreed that during the period in which forces are being regrouped civilians wishing to move from one zone to the other will also be permitted and assisted to do so.
Provision is also made for the eventual reunification of the country, that is, Viet Nam, through free elections, by secret ballot under international supervision, to be held in July, 1956.
In Laos and Cambodia provision is made for the withdrawal of the Vietminh forces from these two countries. Thereafter all citizens are to be enabled, without reprisals or discrimination, to take their place in the national community and to take part in the elections that are to be held next year under the existing constitution of these two countries.
Both Laos and Cambodia are to be enabled to build up armed forces for the effective defence of their territories. For this purpose provision is made for French aid and assistance for their training and equipment. I do not think that the detailed arrangements on these points when published will be found unsatisfactory by the House.
At the same time it is clearly understood that none of the three States will allow the establishment of foreign military bases on its territory or will become a member of a military alliance. The purpose is to ensure that each of these countries shall be able to lead its own life in peace. This should surely be in the continuing interest of all the countries represented at the Conference. Her Majesty's Government sincerely hope that other Governments in Southern Asia and the South-West Pacific will associate themselves with the agreements which have now been reached.
I think everyone will agree that the proceedings of this Conference have been of unparalleled complexity. I am myself convinced that the arrangements now arrived at are the best that could have been contrived in the circumstances of each individual case. The fact that we were able to reach an agreement at all in these last days was due above all to the courage and tenacity of the French Prime Minister, M. Mendès-France. We in this country feel a deep sympathy for the ordeal through which the French people have passed during these last eight

years. At the end of it all, France has now to make heavy sacrifices.
We remember also the fate of the peoples of these three countries of Indo-China, so much of whose lives has been passed under the shadow of war. And as we form judgment upon these events, it is a fair comment to make that the only alternative to these agreements was continued fighting, further misery and suffering, and the certainty of even greater sacrifices in the end.
What is more, there was a wider danger for us all. So long as this fighting continued there was an ever-present risk that the conflict would spread, with measureless consequences. In so far as our toils have averted these dangers, they have been, I am sure, a real gain for peace.

Mr. H. Morrison: The House in general will share with the Foreign Secretary a sense of relief that there is a ceasefire. That in itself is a substantial gain, and we are all very glad about it. We also join with the right hon. Gentleman in our appreciation of the part that has been played by M. Mendès-France, the Prime Minister of France, working, as he was, in very difficult circumstances. We are very glad that this cease-fire agreement has been reached.
It would be rather unwise, I think, for us not to recognise that there are many complications left for future consideration; there are many loose ends. Therefore, we should not assume that all the problems are necessarily solved, but we are indeed glad that the shooting part of the business has now come to an end.

Brigadier Medlicott: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the nation will be profoundly grateful for what has been achieved in conditions of unexampled difficulty, and will wish it to be said that those achievements are due, in no small measure, to his own tireless zeal, initiative, great skill and knowledge of affairs and, not least, to the enormous prestige which he enjoys among the other nations concerned?

Mr. J. Hynd: I think all Members on this side of the House will join with those on the other side of the House in congratulating the Foreign Secretary, M. Mendès-France, and the others taking part in this Conference. In view of the much more encouraging results and the


much more encouraging spirit shown at this Conference as compared with the Berlin Conference, will the Government seriouly consider now whether the time is not opportune for inviting new talks about a settlement of the German problem?

Sir W. Smithers: The hon. and gallant Member for Norfolk, Central (Brigadier Medlicott) has asked the question which I was about to ask, but I cannot remain silent without paying my tribute to the work of the Foreign Secretary.

Sir R. Acland: While the Foreign Secretary's labours have been crowned with these most welcome assurances, a great ideological struggle is more likely to be carried on by economic, social and moral rather than military, means. Could the right hon. Gentleman and his friends look once again at the answer they made about S.U.N.F.E.D. to see whether this occasion should not be used to make a better answer so that we shall now be making a really effective contribution to the kind of struggle which is likely to be intensified in that area, and upon which the long-term future depends?

Mr. Eden: I think we have been conscious throughout that the settlement of any of these problems essential to Central and South-East Asia depends on our having, in the work we are doing, the support of the people of those countries, without which nothing whatever of value can finally be achieved. That is the stern reality. It is not merely a military issue or a military challenge; it is a challenge in respect of a way of life. That is why all that we have done in relation to the Colombo Plan and other efforts is, I think, of first importance.
May I say, in response to the right hon. Gentleman, that I agree that we have to be very cautious in our approach to these matters? I hope that I have been so; and I do believe that when the House can see the terms of the armistice agreement themselves they will not be distressed by them, and that they will feel that the work, despite the difficulties, has been thoroughly and well done. But we have to look beyond the armistice plan to the spirit behind it, and that depends on both sides.
Finally, in answer to the right hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. J. Hynd), of course we hope that these results will lead to better relations elsewhere. We shall do what we can as and when we think the mood right to try to promote this.

Mr. J. Amery: My right hon. Friend said that no foreign bases were to be set up in these three States. Can he confirm that this does not apply to French troops and French bases in Laos, Cambodia and Southern Viet Nam?

Mr. Eden: There are no French bases or French troops in Cambodia. As for Laos, I am afraid that I must ask my hon. Friend to await the publication of the armistice terms. I beg him and others not to take a pessimistic view before he has read them.

Mr. Warbey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is no need for him to apologise to this side of the House at least for the part which he has played with M. Mendès-France and others in helping to bring peace to the whole world for the first time for nearly 15 years?

Major Legge-Bourke: May I ask my right hon. Friend—the right hon. Gentleman—whether he will be assured that, no matter what differences may exist between us on Her Majesty's Government's policy towards other parts of the world, as far as I am concerned I have nothing but admiration for the way in which he has handled the Geneva Conference?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock; and that if the first three Resolutions proposed shall have been agreed to by the Committee of Supply before half-past Nine o'clock, the Chairman shall proceed to put forthwith the Questions which he is directed to put at half-past Nine o'clock by paragraph (6) of Standing Order No. 16 (Business of Supply).—[The Prime Minister.]

Proceedings of the Committee of Ways and Means exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[25TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — CIVIL ESTIMATES AND SUPPLE MENTARY ESTIMATES, 1954–55; ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS AND SUPPLE MENTARY ESTIMATE, 1954–55; MINISTRY OF DEFENCE ESTI MATE, 1954–55; NAVY, ARMY, AND AIR ESTIMATES, 1954–55.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding f179,079,578, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sums necessary to defray the charges for the following services connected with Education in England and Wales for the year ending on 31st March,1955, namely:

£


Class IV, Vote 1, Ministry of Education
164,497,078


Class IV, Vote 11, Universities and Colleges, &amp;c. Great Britain
14,582,500


Total
£179,079,578

—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £47,080,588, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sums necessary to defray the charges for the following services connected with Kenya for the year ending on 31st March, 1955, namely:

£


Class II, Vote 8. Colonial Office
714,660


Class II, Vote 9, Colonial Services (including a Supplementary sum of £227,000)
26,475,928


Class II; Vote 11, Development and Welfare (Colonies, &amp;c.)
12,500,000


Army Estimates, Vote 3, War Office
3,200,000


Air Estimates, Vote 3, Air Ministry
4,190,000


Total
£47,080,588

—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

Orders of the Day — KENYA

4.3 p.m

Mr. A. G. Bottomley: I am sure that the debate will arouse the sympathy of all hon. Members for those resident in Kenya who are suffering because of the present emergency. At the same time, all of us who take part

in the debate must see that our endeavours are directed towards bringing peace to that delightful country which has been so favoured by Nature.
It was in this spirit that the Parliamentary Delegation visited Kenya earlier in the year. For my part, I could not have wished for better colleagues; we were varied in our views, our outlook and our upbringing, but we were all determined to work in the spirit which I have outlined. The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), who led the delegation with marked success, and I, said that we would endeavour to produce a unanimous report, bearing in mind that this was not a matter for party quarrels and that we had a responsibility as Parliamentarians from this House to do everything possible to bring an end to the emergency.
We did all kinds of unusual things for Parliamentarians, including going on patrol with the troops. We met every organised body we could and we met individuals, too, because they also had a contribution to make. Let me say that if we take the people as a whole, broadly they are the same as ourselves; they are all doing their best in their own way. There were, however, some disturbing factors, and I am sure that my colleagues will join with me in saying that the behaviour of some of the Europeans was not that which we could admire. Equally, some of the Europeans in this country behave in a similar manner, and we condemn them as we condemn those in Kenya.
On the other hand, we met some very fine characters. As time is short, I will not give particular instances, but I can tell the Committee that we met some Europeans whose standard of behaviour in most difficult conditions—I must say that usually they were those in the front line—was something to be admired. We met others, too. Earlier in the House the Prime Minister harked back to the past. I am tempted to quote what he said in 1908. He said that every man in Nairobi was a politician and most of them leaders of parties. We certainly found that to be the case.
I think the mission helped to clear away many misunderstandings which the people of Kenya had about people in this country, and particularly those in this House; and, similarly, some of our misunderstandings were cleared away. We


established a very friendly relationship not only with the Europeans but also with the Africans, the Asians and the Arabs.
Having spoken about reactionary Europeans, let me say at once that reaction was also to be found amongst members of other races. It was indeed disturbing, particularly to me, in view of my association with Asia, to find that to- be the case. At this stage I would express one regret, and it is that the Government did not follow the advice of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and send the delegation earlier. There was a delay, and I think that was a mistake.
Before we went out to Kenya, we were alarmed about criticisms of the security forces—and with good reason, for many of the security forces come front this country. With a good deal of fore thought, the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove decided to spend some time with the Highland troops. For the same reason, I went with the Buffs—I sit for a 'Kent constituency. In addition, the Royal Engineers from Chatham were there. Those troops from this country behaved in an exemplary manner. It was most unfortunate that a particular case at about that time had created doubts in our minds.
All of us had some anxiety about the police. There were very good policemen, and I say what I am about to say only as an illustration that perhaps the, best kind of leadership was not being given; but at one stage I was talking to a very highly-placed policeman, and I asked him whether the situation was becoming easier. He said, "It is far worse." When I asked his reasons, he said that he had lost two sheep from his farm. That did not strike me as very sound reasoning.
I am very glad that the Government have seen fit to replace the higher administration by other officers. We all have sympathy with those who struggled in adverse conditions, but I am quite sure that Commander Young goes to Kenya with our good wishes. I believe that he will do the job extremely well.
This Report of the Parliamentary Delegation contains about 30 recommendations and I want to refer to one or two of them. Let me first of all mention

land, because I think that is one of the most acute problems. We did not go into it as fully as we might have done because a Royal Commission was sitting on the subject and a Royal Commission is no doubt more qualified than a Parliamentary Delegation to deal with the subject at this stage. Nevertheless, we thought it important to say that land policy
should be designed to encourage the utilisation under suitable safeguards of undeveloped areas by competent farmers of whatever race.
In saying that, I should mention that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. E. Wakefield), who has made a special study of the land question because of his own service in India, will no doubt speak on this subject, and for that reason I will say no more about it in order to permit other hon. Members to take part in the debate.
We also said that wages were most important and should be considered. There again, a salaries commission is at work, and it is gratifying to know that it said that there ought to be equal pay for equal work. Then there was the Carpenter Committee's Report. That Report was produced in a progressive spirit. It might have laid greater stress on the need to assist the development of trade unions but, on the other hand, it took note of what we said, that:
Leaders of the trade union movement should be given encouragement to enable them to accept more responsibility and to acquire an acknowledged status. Whitley councils should be used as the beginning of a new phase in which trade unionism has a fundamental part to play.
There are other recommendations, including one about the creation of villages, about which I think that the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) will talk. Another is about social services and education. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) will talk about education. One feature which struck me about education was that we are producing teachers in Kenya, but once we have produced them we do not pay them what they should be paid. The result is that the teachers get work elsewhere and, therefore, they do not do the work for which they were trained. In my opinion, there are not sufficient avenues of promotion to encourage them to stay in the profession.
There is a need for increased efforts in looking after the African women who


probably are responsible for a great deal of the trouble and who have been neglected in the past. We emphasised in our Report that we should consider arranging for women administrative officers. This is a matter within the control of the right hon. Gentleman. I should like to know what action, if any, has been taken. We know that the provincial commissioners, the district commissioners and the district officers do work which is of the highest quality and for the greatest good.
I want to talk about political representation. The leader in "The Times" today is extremely good. I go with the writer a long way, but I make the difference that I consider that there may still be an emergency in 1956. For that reason, I make some comments which may not be quite as harmonious as the expressions of the delegation as a whole. I consider that the emergency is so serious that we should review the position about detention. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. R. Williams), who is a solicitor and who rendered admirable service in dealing with questions of justice and martial law, is not here today, because of illness. I read, as many of us must have done last week, the "Economist," a journal which is usually very guarded in its use of words. It referred to 50,000 Kikuyu being herded together in detention camps.
These people in the detention camps are the seeds of terrible future trouble. My own view is that these camps will create disaster. Probably I visited more of these camps than the other members of the delegation. I say at once that, remembering that they are overcrowded, the conditions in them are not as bad as I thought they would be. I would say that the staff were doing their work in the best possible way. We must bear in mind the fact that among the 50,000 detained there are the thugs and gangsters and the Mau Mau who are the real cause of the trouble. Although there has not yet been great violence, it is probable that there will be. I am fearful of something being done—it may be the murder of those officers who are doing their best to guard the detainees. Not only for the reasons which I have narrated but also because innocent people are in the camps, I say that something must be done about removing many of the detainees.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Did not the right hon. Gentleman visit the Athi River detention camp? Would not he agree that that camp was run in the most efficient manner by officers of considerable ability? I should like the right hon. Gentleman to deal with the point, that not only was that so but that there was very careful separation of those who might be called the thugs in one part of the camp and those who were being recovered and who were kept in another. They were well and truly kept separate.

Mr. Bottomley: I visited that camp and we were gratified to find that exceptional work was being done. There were three Europeans. Suppose that the thugs took it into their heads to attack those in charge, what chance would the Europeans stand? I agree that the camp was well run, but I am fearful of the consequences if we are to keep these people, as the "Economist" says, herded together for too long.
I know that the Church Missionary Society, the African Church, the Scottish Church and many voluntary organisations are disturbed about this matter. I had a visitor from Kenya this afternoon who told me that many of the representations are being ignored. I am told that in one case the local home guard, a location chief and the district officer as well as church authorities said that certain people should be released because they were innocent of any crime, but they were kept in detention.
I should like to quote what was said by one gentleman who is a member of the Legislative Council and who is not known as having the most liberal views. According to the "East African Standard" he said:
I think we have been deceived in regard to Operation Anvil' judging by the letters in the Press. Some of us were under the impression that when Kikuyu were picked up and screened…those who were decent would be sent back to their masters to carry on working. That does not appear to be so and there is a rising hostile feeling among Europeans and non-Africans that these people are not receiving a square deal.….
I appeal to the Secretary of State to look into this matter, and especially would I say that whenever an "Operation Anvil," or any other mass operation, is arranged, it is more important than ever that the really guilty men should not go free. It is my view that a good many


of them are now back in Nairobi. If we are to believe General Heyman, there is to be another "Operation Anvil" before long. If we are to have another operation of that kind, then to give notice beforehand is not the best form of organisation. It is wrong that the detention camps should be run in this way.
Without African leadership the emergency goes on without end. General Erskine was right when he said that this is indeed a political issue. In our Report we said:
African leadership will be required and means of developing this are indispensable.
We suggested that everything possible should be done to win the confidence of the Africans. We should remember that they comprise 95 per cent. of the population. I congratulate the Secretary of State on his initiative and hard work in going to Kenya immediately after the visit of our delegation. He achieved a measure of success in forming a multiracial Government, but that is not revolutionary. There is no new principle. After all, we have had Executive Councils. There was one in Kenya which was multi-racial.
The Africans put forward to the Secretary of State what I thought were modest proposals. They said that two of their number should be members of the Cabinet of 16. Two prominent European politicians who are members of the Government supported that. It is fair to say to the Secretary of State that he failed to secure even tepid support from Africans for his proposals. Whoever opposed, whether European or Asian, both are in the same dire difficulty. If the Europeans are pushed out, the Asians are pushed out too. Whichever side was responsible for preventing the right hon. Gentleman from implementing what I think he thought was a right decision has a tremendous responsibility.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me for interrupting. I have enjoyed all he has said, and I agreed with every word of it. I am grateful to him for detailing in his Report the very recommendations which I made in November. 1952, which were so much criticised until they had the respectable protection of the members of this Delegation who reported pretty well what I said. At this stage when we are applauding the action

of M. Mendès-France, who is at this moment believed to be about to free Habib Bourguiba and to give a new lead in Tunis, is it not abundantly obvious that, in order to win the confidence of Africans in Kenya, we ought to release certain African leaders such as Odede and Koinange in an attempt to create peace among the Africans?

Mr. Bottomley: What my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) says has my support, and I shall make a similar comment before I sit down.
The African who eventually joined the Cabinet was hand-picked. There was no representative organisation. Because of that, I think that, without African cooperation, the emergency will go on. Because I think the present situation is acute and urgent, I want the recommendations of the Parliamentary Delegation to be implemented quickly. I want to see whether the newly-elected Cabinet has done anything about the recommendations, and I shall be glad if the Secretary of State can give us that information.
A statement about policy towards Africans has already been made, and as far as it goes it is good. It deals with education and housing. What has been the result? The European Electors' Union has come forward with a contra-policy statement saying that all questions are to be examined from the Kenya point of view, and not from a racial angle. It says that skilled immigrants are to be of European descent only. It says that there shall be separate education for European children, and also that there shall be no surrender at any foreseeable time of the European position in the White Highlands. That is most reactionary and not calculated to win the confidence of Africans.
A good thing has happened in that the Europeans have formed a new party which contains progressive-minded persons. It is right that in a democratic State there should be a Right and a Left. However, the new United Country Party has been compelled to include in its programme the preservation of separate electoral rolls and the integrity of the White Highlands. The Asians have called this a negation of the aim to build a multi-racial society in Africa. Sir Philip Mitchell was probably right in his reference to political ineptitude.
I would categorise the people in four main groups. First, there is the European who went out there initially and developed the country. The African went into his home and was given care and comfort and was most grateful to the European. There was a relationship as between a very faithful creature and its owner. In due course the sons of the African grew up, and they rightly say, "We want additional welfare; we want greater opportunities." The old European settler fails to understand. He says, "I came here at great inconvenience and helped to open up the country and I did all I could for the African, who was most grateful, but now his sons do not appreciate it at all." It is sad, but that is the state of affairs.
On the other hand, we have the African-born European, the Kenyan, who rightly says, "This is my country. I have as much right to be here as anyone else." He expresses his view not in the calmest of ways, and the result is that he causes a great deal of trouble.
There is a middle group with whom our hopes have to be bound up. They are the men and women who went out there after the First World War or immediately after the last war. Among them we find a liberal-mindedness and a desire to help.
The fourth group contains those who, in my judgment, are mainly the cause of the trouble. They are the ones who went to Kenya in about 1948. In 1948 there were 30,000 white settlers in Kenya today there are about 42,000. Many of those who went out there in 1948 and later went to evade the responsibilities in helping to create the Welfare State in this country. They are largely responsible for a great deal of the trouble which goes on. Their influence not only in Kenya but also upon Kenya's political attitude to the United Kingdom is bad. This makes me favourable towards the recommendation in Dr. Carothers' Report that there should be screening of Europeans as well as Africans.
Time and time again I met European leaders in Kenya who were most progressively minded, and they said, "Why cannot the United Kingdom Government give directions which would be a means of overcoming our problem." Many Europeans in high political positions said

that to me. We have seen by the way in which the Secretary of State has had to come to the House that Kenya is unable to pay the costs of the emergency. The United Kingdom bears the cost of the military campaign, and it contributes heavily towards the rehabilitation and development schemes. There is an old maxim which does not quite fit here but is worth quoting, that there should be no taxation without representation.
I have a proposition to make to the Secretary of State. Emergency demands exceptional action. I ask him to consider what happened during the war. He was sent overseas as a Minister to deal on the spot with problems as they arose. There are other Ministers in the Government who did similar jobs with marked success. There is a lot to be said for the Government having a Colonial Minister on the spot. It would be a means of conveying to the residents in Kenya the feelings of the House of Commons and the people of the United Kingdom, and it would also be a means of determining what has been done about the Report of the Parliamentary Delegation. In addition, progressive-minded Kenyans would welcome such a Minister being there, because it would give encouragement and support to them in obtaining the implementation without difficulty of many of the things in which they believe.
Such a Minister could call together the nationalist leaders. I am referring to those who oppose Mau Mau. There are many leaders in detention camps who are nationalistic Africans and not Mau Mau. Mau Mau is something which we all abhor. It is a terrorist organisation which is doing nothing but harm to the Africans, in particular. When I plead with the Secretary of State for the release of detained persons, I do not mean Kenyatta or any other person who has been detained after a fair trial; there are others in the detention camps without trial who ought to be given the opportunity to leave.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: I should like to follow up the right hon. Gentleman's interesting suggestion. If such a Minister as he suggests were sent out to the Colony, what would be his position in relation to the Governor?

Mr. Bottomley: I am coming to that point as well. I want to make it perfectly clear, as I have done on the public


platform and elsewhere, that the Governor himself is doing an exceedingly good job. He may not have the drive and determination of a politician, but at least he is diplomatic and he has the right ideas. I look upon the Governor as the constitutional representative, the personal representative of Her Majesty the Queen. Many of the matters with which we have to deal are highly political, and the Minister who went out there would have to deal with them in a more political fashion than would be expected of the Governor.
Speed is essential. I should say that it was wrong of the Secretary of State to disband the Kenya African Union. By doing that he left a free field for the underground movement, which is the Mau Mau, to which there is no alternative leadership. There is a real danger of Mau Mau-ism spreading over not only the whole of Kenya but also the whole of Africa. I am supported in this view by Dr. Carothers' Report. From my experience, the African is fundamentally a good friend of this country.
I believe that we are providing a fertile soil for Communism. The Foreign Secretary today made an excellent statement which we all appreciated, because it said that war was further removed. I believe that there is a real danger of the battleground of Asia being transferred to Africa unless we do something urgently now. There is not only the necessity for economic and social improvements; they have to be accompanied by political improvements as well.
I had the privilege of serving as a member of the mission that went to India at the end of the war, and the reception to us all was not of the friendliest nature. In 1949, I returned to that great country and I was received by a Minister, Sardar Patel, in the friendliest way. I could not have been treated better if I had been the King himself. I said to Sardar Patel, "I cannot understand it; what a difference in your treatment of me today." He said, Bottomley, when you came in 1945, you were a representative of the paramount power and you dominated us. We always thought well of you British, but, now that we are free and run our own country, we can show you our true feelings."
The world in all has but two races, the good and the bad and these are mixed everywhere. I say that this Kenya problem is a challenge as well as an

opportunity. If the world is to live in peace and harmony, it can do so only on the basis of all the races of the world working unitedly together. Nowhere else in the world have we the opportunity of uniting Europeans, Asians, Africans and Arabs. If it will work in Africa, it will work anywhere in the world.

4.32 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton): Let me begin by thanking the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley) for the spirit in which he made his remarks. I think the whole Committee will be very grateful to him. The right hon. Gentleman has not intervened very often in colonial debates, as I remember, but we on this side of the Committee will welcome his interventions on more occasions in the future, because much of what he said imported a new tone to the subject of Kenya.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not mind me saying that he is a man of sanguine and energetic temperament who usually gives expression to it in a way which we find convincing, but when he changes his normal attitude for that of prophet, I must say that he does not convince me at all.
What I have to say will largely concern the Kikuyu, but I want to emphasise that we are pushing on with developments all over Kenya, and more particularly amongst the great majority of the population who have remained unaffected by Mau Mau. We must not get out of balance; these are the things which concern us now. After all, the Kikuyu are only about a quarter of the African population.
I propose to deal as shortly as I can with the military aspects of the emergency, partly because they are in themselves very simple, and partly because, now that the machine for combating the forces of terrorism is in first-rate order, we can concentrate more fully on the political, social and economic future of Kenya. When the last word is said about Mau Mau, I do not think it will carry us very much further than paragraph 9 of the Report of the Parliamentary Delegation. It is worth while reminding, the Committee of what the Delegation said:
Mau Mau is a conspiracy, designed to dominate first the Kikuyu tribe and then all other Africans and finally to exterminate or drive out all other races and seize power in


Kenya. It is a political and social conspiracy, a secret society, which uses terrorism to secure obedience where it cannot command willing support or compliance.
I think all hon. Members should bear in mind those words of the Parliamentary Delegation.
Of course, it is a truism to say that Kenya is confronted with two interlocked problems, the problem of restoring law and order and freedom from fear, on the one hand, and the constructive problem of advancing the future of Kenya, on the other. Many of the measures that have to be taken against the terrorists are drastic, but the critics of them fail to carry weight because they have never enunciated an alternative practical policy. The military plan, although that in itself is a slight misnomer, is to clear the Mau Mau out of the infected areas in turn, and to consolidate each area thus progressively cleared by closer administration and more police as the troops move forward to their next task. That is the plan, and the Committee will be glad to know that in this operation we are meeting with very great successes, and, although isolated instances do occur, they are not allowed to divert the main operational plan, and some risks have to be accepted.
Let me speak, too, about Nairobi, to which the right hon. Gentleman opposite referred. The situation there was described in the Report of the Parliamentary Delegation as "both grave and acute," and the Delegation went on to say, and I quote, because, in many respects this is a very valuable document:
Such conditions as these, in the heart of Kenya, strike at the roots of public security and of respect for law and order.
I assented at the time to that statement, and I still believe it to be correct.
"Operation Anvil," to put this right, had long been planned. It was a very large-scale operation, the details of which were described to me when I was in Nairobi in March. It involved large numbers of troops and police, and closely-timed movements. It required, too, a great organisation for the screening of those who were detained. The right hon. Gentleman opposite should make a distinction between those detained under temporary orders under "Operation Anvil" and the hard core of the problem. The right hon. Gentleman also

quoted from the "Economist" in regard to the number of people detained, and I will deal with that point later.
The operation was completed on 25th May. There has since been a spectacular drop in crime, and notably violent crime, and the whole situation in Nairobi has been completely changed for the better. For example, almost every Mau Mau cell—they contain nine persons—in Nairobi has been disrupted. There have been some crimes of late but except when there are very large numbers of troops and police in Nairobi, there will always be some crime. The Chief Commissioner of Police states that most of the crimes which have recently occurred have not been of a political nature, but ordinary crimes which are to be expected, I am afraid, in large cities.
In other areas, there are indications that even amongst the forest gangs a substantial number realise that the Kikuyu will never achieve their aim by the terrorist methods of Mau Mau. I do not propose to indulge in any prophecies of when the shooting war will come to an end, but I can say that we are right on top of this part of the problem. Many very optimistic statements have been made to which I do not subscribe, because I think that certainly some of the Mau Mau leaders are determined to carry on the struggle.
Nairobi was certainly a centre from which attempts were made to infect other tribes, and although the movement of Mau Mau into other tribes than the Kikuyu must be carefully watched day by day with the closest attention, it is fortunately true that the spread beyond the Kikuyu and parts of the Embu and Meru, which are almost indistinguishable from Kikuyu in this context, has not taken place to any great extent. Morale amongst the terrorists has suffered severely because of higher casualties, because of less willing support from the population and from the increasing realisation that success is impossible. I should like to support some of these statements by actual examples.
Our intelligence, from captured terrorists, amongst other sources, shows that the gangs realise that there is no hope of the Kikuyu winning the struggle without assistance from other tribes, and the Mau Mau have been unsuccessful, by and large, in their attempts to indoctrinate other tribes.
Now I should like to give a few instances which will bear out what I have said. Recently there was a series of anti-Mau Mau demonstrations, mainly in the Nyeri district, which is one of the worst districts affected by Mau Mau. In the Agathi location, 7,000 people spontaneously mobilised and offered their services to the authorities. At a sports meeting—I mention that because it gives a picture of a totally different character from what most people imagine—1,500 people rushed on to the sports field, shouting "Down with Mau Mau." According to Reuter's, Chief Stanley, of Gikondi location, said his people wished to denounce the evil of Mau Mau, and 9,000 of them took part in a sweep with troops and Kikuyu guards. During the Governor's recent tour, a great many people came forward and offered their help to end Mau Mau terrorism.
Before I leave the subject of operations, I must interpose something about the police and the Home Guard. The police situation gave me great anxiety at one time. Colonel O'Rourke, who was the Commissioner of Police, deserved very well of Kenya because he handled the difficult problems of a rapidly expanding police force on the right lines, and with energy and courage. However, he worked himself out and he was replaced by Colonel Young, whose outstanding services in Malaya will he present to the minds of hon. Members in all parts of the Committee. He has in hand at the moment the wide-scale reorganisation and retraining of the police. More than 1,000 police have been withdrawn for training, and a large number of highly-experienced police officers have been seconded to Kenya from Malaya and other Territories.
Colonel Young's plans do not stop at the retraining of the police. As hon. Members know, he was the author of the scheme known as "Operation Service" in Malaya, which had such an electric effect upon the relations of the population with the police. He will gradually build up these relations in Kenya, just as he did in Malaya. Colonel Young, whom I saw in Kenya last week, reports well of the police; he has great confidence in them. We can be reassured on this score. The Kenya Government aim at gradually being able to replace the military with the police and to devolve

responsibility for the maintenance of law and order, as it is re-established district by district, location by location, upon the Administration and the police.
Now I turn for a moment to the Home Guard. The present strength is approximately 25,000 and is not being increased over this figure. It occupies 500 posts and has approximately 5,000 firearms. It is officered by 90 district officers, which number is being increased to 108. In paragraph 24 of its Report, the Parliamentary Delegation draw attention to the need for greater assistance for the Home Guard. I think this has been carried out. Substantial sums have been spent on clothing for full-time guards, while 15,000 guards have been exempted from the payment of special taxes, and school fees for up to three children are waived for full-time guards. So much for the military or violent part of the struggle, but before I turn to the political, social and economic aspects, I want to devote some time to the subject of the immense task of screening and detention.
Speaking generally, there is a gradual process of sorting out the background of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru, through teams of loyalists and ex-terrorists who have co-operated with the security forces. Information about individuals is checked -and cross-checked in the Reserves by European officers in charge of the screening teams, and those screened are put into categories according to the amount of information which has been obtained against them and which has been sifted.
Secondly, those detained—and this is where the right hon. Member for Rochester and Chatham was a bit off the rails—as a result of "Operation Anvil" in Nairobi and the Central Provinces are screened at the reception camps at Mackinnon Road, Manyani and Langata. They are not detained under permanent detention orders but under temporary detention orders whilst they are being screened. I know of no other way in which this operation could have been done. I think this had the support of the Parliamentary Delegation.

Mr. Bottomley: I did not say that the cleaning up of Nairobi should be done by "Operation Anvil." Cleaning up Nairobi had the support of the Parlia-


mentary Delegation. I was merely making the suggestion that there were other ways in which it could have been done.

Mr. Lyttelton: I cannot accept the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion. Very often people say that things ought to be cleaned up, but they may be rather shocked when they come to examine the methods which have to be used.
Screening in those camps is conducted by district officers from the Central Provinces together with teams of Africans. The dangerous Mau Mau adherents, that is, suspected murderers, executioners, so-called court officials, oath administrators, active gang members, ammunition carriers, scouts and informers, are tried in court for Mau Mau offences if sufficient evidence is available against them or they are detained on Governor's detention orders if necessary or they are sent to works camps in the Reserves.
Let me say with every sincerity that I sympathise deeply with all those to whom the idea of detaining people without trial because there is insufficient evidence to try them is repugnant. It is very difficult for us in this country—and I do hear astonishing statements sometimes from hon. Members of the Opposition below the Gangway—to realise a condition in which witnesses would not come forward but are terrorised, where murders are committed in the presence of hundreds of people yet no witnesses will come forward and the weapons are not found—it is not the same as county courts in this country. Unless we relinquish all idea of law and order, we have to accept the principle that unless we have proper evidence to bring suspected persons before a court the people concerned will have to be detained.
Those who are not regarded as actively dangerous are placed in an intermediate category and are sent to works camps in the Central Province, where they undergo additional screening by their own elders to see whether they can eventually be released. Thirdly, are those whom screening has shown to be harmless and who are released as soon as they have been screened.
There are now, as a result of "Operation Anvil," 17,000 people in works camps or detention camps and 21,500 in reception centres, where they are held

temporarily. I would reassure the right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) that screening is going forward rapidly and will be completed within the six months during which the temporary Regulations apply. A great deal of money has been spent to establish these camps and the greatest care is taken to ensure that conditions are good. The Government of Kenya have informed me of a report by the Church Missionary Society which might be worth quoting. as it comes from outside Government circles. The report says:
On the whole, conditions in the camps are good. The food is adequate, and even in some cases liberal.
I leave this part of the subject—and I apologise for keeping the Committee so long—by saying that once we accept the necessity for screening and detaining persons who have been contaminated by Mau Mau and those who are actively engaged in murder and terrorism, we must accept that we sometimes have to detain without trial because the evidence is not forthcoming. The care which is taken over the screening and the conditions under which those are detained have to live, are as good as we can reasonably make them.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: Has the boycott been removed on smoking in the streets and travelling in buses in Nairobi?

Mr. Lyttelton: I have not received any recent information on those points. The last I heard about it was that it was less in extent.
I would now say something about the administration of law in relation to charges of capital offences. The Committee probably knows that, both in Malaya and in Kenya, I have always set my face against any form of summary justice. The Governments of those two countries—and they did not require any persuading—adhere absolutely to this rule. In Kenya justice is as speedy as we can make it, provided that the due processes of law and the right of those accused to be represented by counsel and so forth, are preserved, as they must be. Further than speeding up the ordinary processes—neither the Kenya Government nor I would be prepared to go; but this matter is important. There is a great deal of apprehension in the Committee on this matter. Prosecutions under the Emergency Regulations are


only brought if there is reason to believe that the offences are connected with acts of terrorism or murder.
The charges of carrying ammunition and consorting with terrorists are not brought unless there is evidence that the person has been present with armed gangs, or is in possession of Mau Mau letters, diaries, subscription lists, oath ceremony arrangements and so forth, or is in possession of materials for making home-made guns.
The total number of persons executed for Mau Mau offences is 510, and of these 211 have been for murder, 129 for unlawful possession of arms, and 91 for being convicted of consorting with terrorists. The Kenya Government are always considering whether it is possible to reduce the capital penalty for the offence of being in unlawful possession of ammunition or for consorting with terrorists. They are of opinion that such relaxation is inadmissible.
I want again to say that the policy with regard to those found in possession of ammunition is quite clear. It is: not to prosecute men for carrying ammunition if they have not taken an active part in operations. Thus a man caught during a skirmish with a gang who is found in possession of ammunition, would be charged, but a casual Kikuyu picked up in the Reserves with three or four rounds on him would ordinarily not.
I now turn to the next part of my subject, which is reconstruction and rehabilitation. As I unfold it, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise how many of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Delegation Report have been carried out.
The re-settlement of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru on release from prison or detention, or for whom there is no employment or land in their Reserves, is one of the most important tasks facing the Kenya Government. This is one of the major concerns of the new Council of Ministers and they have set up special machinery.
Today relief work on agricultural betterment is being provided for about 10,000 in the Kikuyu districts, and the works camps for displaced Kikuyu have been sited so that those who have been detained can be employed on constructive work. Four of these camps are developing

irrigation projects, one is for work on the roads, and one is for bush clearing and cultivation. Similar projects are now under survey and a major project for the irrigation of an area of about 60,000 acres between the Upper Tana and Thiba rivers offers prospects of re-settling no less than 10,000 families there. I want to emphasise also that all work in these camps is voluntary and is all paid for at the ordinary market rates for labour.
Shortly, the irrigation projects in hand are those in the Baringo District, the Machakos District and the Mwea-Tebere District in Embu. They will involve digging somewhere about 50 miles of main irrigation furrow. Six new camps are being built, so as to complete the construction as speedily as possible, so that we can turn to training workers for rice irrigation, and so forth.
In addition to irrigation, there is the Narok Bush Clearing Trial to determine the best way of clearing grazing land of the "Leleshwa" bush. Other projects relate to roads, which I need not specify.
How do these projects affect the main problem, which is how to re-settle the men in the works camps. And what is to happen to those in detention camps, and to the ex-Mau Mau convicts? Of the 56,000 persons concerned, a certain number—we hope a small proportion—have been so deeply implicated that they are unlikely ever to be permitted to return to the Central Province. Of the remainder, some families will be returned to the land which they have in the Reserves: some families will be re-settled when security conditions permit in other parts of the Colony, some of them in European farming areas; some families will be employed in the forest areas; some families not entirely free from suspicion will be re-employed in new areas—I have indicated the sort of areas—which can be cultivated and which are being made available by the new five-year African agricultural plan, and by some of the works camps projects, and other families who are still thought to require some degree of supervision, will be resettled in the Central Province on schemes proposed by the African Land Development Board.
I believe that these schemes will gain the wholehearted support of hon. Members in all quarters of the House. These are the schemes to which my mind turns


when I am oppressed either by some terrible incident which had been provoked by the Mau Mau, or when I look at the large figures of those in detention; because they are large, although they are an extremely small percentage of the whole population of Kenya.
I apologise for keeping the Committee so long but I want to give hon. Members a full report, if they will bear with me. I pass, in natural sequence, to the subject of new villages. These are not schemes of rehabilitation, but schemes of re-grouping the Kikuyu in villages. The Kenya Government propose to establish no less than 320 new villages, each village being designed for about 100 families, so that 32,000 families will eventually be re-grouped in the villages. One hundred and forty new villages out of those 320 have already been established and 86 are under construction. For example, in the Nyeri District, 40 out of every 100 Africans have already been brought into villages to live.
The design and layout of the villages are carefully planned by the District Commissioner or the District Officer in conjunction with the Medical Officer or Health Inspector. All villages are sited so as to be protected by a guard post, and the greatest care is paid to security, hygiene and future expansion. The immediate advantage of these villages, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) will be the first to recognise, is as it was in Malaya, security and protection.
In the meantime they will enable social services, particularly health measures, to be brought much more effectively to the help of the rural population than if they are scattered about all over the place. There are two demonstration villages being set up to demonstrate some of the advantages of village life. In one of these villages there is already a church, three schools, a community hall, a football field and a children's playground; and a dispensary is being built.
I must here say one word about closer administration. The Kenya Government has embarked upon a policy of closer administration, and this means more and more administrative sub-stations in each district, and in bad areas even in locations. These sub-stations contain a

District Officer, Police Officer and possibly an Agricultural Officer and Veterinary Officer as well. Ten stations were established before the emergency. 12 during 1953 and early 1954, six are under construction and a further 18 are proposed. The Committee will realise that this means a large increase in Administrative Officers, and 100 Administrative Assistants are being recruited this year.
Let me in passing pay tribute to the contribution the churches in Kenya have made in this work. They are co-operating wholeheartedly with the Government in the work of rehabilitation, and a working party under the chairmanship of Mr. Ohanga, the Minister for Community Development, is studying new schemes for combined action by the Government and the churches.
I must necessarily, in the time available to me, pass rather rapidly over a number of other questions which are no less important than those with which I have already dealt.
The Committee will remember that many of the schemes of re-habilitation and re-settlement concern agriculture as they necessarily must, but I want to describe otherwise how what I might call the normal developments of agriculture, aided by this grant from Her Majesty's Government, are proceeding, and to say a word about the plans for the future.

Mr. John Dugdale: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to deal further with the grant? Is this the right moment to ask a question?

Mr. Lyttelton: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will get up when I have dealt with my next point? I had a report from the Governor, who made an extensive tour, when he got back to Kenya. In spite of disorders, soil conservation—which lies at the root of the agricultural problem—has gone on at a much greater rate than ever before. The most permanent and hopeful development in conservation is in the construction of bench terraces, which give areas of flat land on the slopes, like those you can see in the Appenines. No less than 1,820 miles of these terraces were constructed in the Central Province alone in the first four months of 1954, which is more than four times the figure for the whole of 1952. Does this give a picture of a country


which is going backwards or of one which is going forwards? There is only one answer.
Then there is the consolidation of holdings, on which the Kenya Government are carrying out a drive. The greatest successes under this heading have been in Nyeri. Last month the number of acres consolidated was one-fifth the number consolidated during the 21 months of the Emergency. In Makueni there was a scheme for consolidating holdings so that they could be occupied and in cultivation by the end of 1955. This scheme has been finished 1½ years ahead of schedule, and 900 families have now moved into that area. Does this give a picture of a country going backwards? To me it only suggests that the tempo of this work is rapidly increasing in this area because greater confidence in the Government has been built up by the measures we have taken.
There are 13 African surveyors available and a number more are under training at Embu Training School. I may add that in Fort Hall and Nyeri, rural training schools to give training in building, carpentry and agriculture have been completed and each already has about 40 pupils. The one in Embu is almost ready. These schools are on the same lines as the schools in Machakos and South Nyanza—the latter which I personally inspected. They will help boys who leave school to have training which will get them jobs and open up to them a useful future.
I want now to turn for one moment to the longer-term plans for agriculture over the whole of Kenya and not only for the Kikuyu. These long-term plans which are assisted by the £5 million grant from Her Majesty's Government are projected to secure further consolidation of land holdings, to promote irrigation, the large-scale development of stock raising and a great increase in the cash crops to be grown by Africans. First, may I say a word about cash crops. African coffee growers numbered 8,208 in 1951, and in 1953 there were 15,019. Does this suggest a country that is going back? I think not. This year in Embu—an affected territory—planting was 50 per cent. higher than ever before. The programme contemplated for five years will he completed in one year. Does this look like a country which is going back?
In Meru the area planted was 600 acres, which is three times that for the year 1952–53, and there have been similar percentage increases in Nyeri and Fort Hall. These are instances in the Kikuyu Reserves, but the plans cover the whole of Kenya and aim to increase the acreage of coffee under African cultivation from just under 4,000 acres as at present to 71,500 acres in 15 years. All this is moving forward satisfactorily.
The plan aims to raise the acreage of tea grown by Africans, now on an experimental scale of 41 acres only, to 12,000 acres over the next 15 years. It aims to raise the acreage of pineapples from 3,000 to 15,000, of pyrethrum from 1,300 to 48,300 acres, and to double the bale production of cotton. Does this give the impression that the Kenya Government are fumbling with their economic planning? I think not. They are bold and imaginative schemes. Admittedly the acreages will be difficult to attain, but I have noticed that great drive and enthusiasm have been put to work, and I am hopeful that they will be reached.

Mr. Dugdale: I am sure that we have all listened with great interest to the plans that are being developed, but I want to ask about the grants being made. Is it the case that before they are made these grants will be discussable by the House, or are they to be made under the Colonial Development and Welfare scheme? Shall we have an opportunity to ask whether in fact the Kenya Government are to make a sufficient contribution themselves before we in this country are asked to make further grants?

Mr. Lyttelton: I have no doubt that there will be many opportunities for the right hon. Gentleman to raise questions as to how the £5 million grant—which was made outside the C.D. & W. scheme for specific agricultural purposes—is being spent—and I have no doubt that he will be very quick to take advantage of those opportunities.

Mr. Dugdale: It will be debatable?

Mr. Lyttelton: There will be opportunities if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to raise it. We made the grant, and I announced it in the House.

Mr. James Griffiths: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us how much of the total amount is coming from


C.D. & W., or has been earmarked against it? Or is it covered by Supplementary Estimates?

Mr. Lyttelton: This is a special grant. It is not all C.D. & W., and that, I think, is what the right hon. Gentleman wants to know.
With regard to education, 136 of the K.I.S.A. schools were closed in the Central Province at the beginning of the emergency, because, like the K.A.U., to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, they were seed-beds for Mau Mau. That is distressing, but the facts were startling—as one hon. Member has said.

Mr. Bottomley: Has the right hon. Gentleman at any time heard that there was a near revolution in the Kenya Africa Union at the time it was formed, and a possibility that they would have destroyed Mau Mau themselves?

Mr. Lyftelton: I think that is more in accordance with the right hon. Gentleman's sanguine temperament and my advisers, including the Governor, say that there is very little or no foundation for it.
Forty-six of the schools had been reopened by January, 1954—under other management, if I may say so—58 have been declared redundant, 15 are to be reopened and there are only 17 whose fate is still undecided. In 1953 £2,132,000 was spent on African education in Kenya as a whole, as compared with £1,345,000 in 1952. Nor are the figures less striking concerning teacher training of Africans. In 1945 there were 46 teachers with university qualifications; in 1953 there were 167. Does that look like a country that is going back? In 1945 there were none with secondary qualifications, and in 1953 there were 269. In 1945 2,000 odd had primary qualifications and in 1953 the figure was 7,685.
I now turn to housing. Here again most skilled observers in Kenya—and the Parliamentary Delegation in particular—stress the importance of housing. This is a separate subject from that of the villages, to which I have already referred, and in this context I mean largely housing in the centres of population rather than in the country districts. Last summer, just over a year ago, a Central Housing Board was set up under the

chairmanship of the Deputy Governor. Kenya negotiated a loan of £2 million from the Colonial Development Corporation, and there is a large local authority programme in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu, Eldoret and Machakos. The Kenya Government will build 2,310 houses for its employees.
I want to turn very shortly to the political developments to what the right hon. Gentleman referred. I say quite straight out that I am heartened by the beginning which has been made by the Council of Ministers, and by the new constitutional arrangements which I negotiated on my last visit to Kenya. I do not think for one moment that it is accurate to say that Africans regard this beginning with indifference, as was suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. I have no evidence of that whatever, and I will give some instances why I make this statement.
Every day that passes knits the Government more closely together, and it is, for the first time in the history of Kenya, a multi-racial Government. I detected in the right hon. Gentleman's speech the usual expression of disappointment that the multi-racial Government was not on a broader foundation, but I thought when I was there, and I am absolutely certain since, that this is as far as one can go in multi-racial Government at present: I repeat what I said at that time, that I was surprised by the wide extent of the liberal opinion in Kenya—amongst Europeans in particular—which enabled this multi-racial Government to be formed. Hon. Members in all parts of the Committee must realise what it means, when people are being murdered, to make this advance. I was surprised by the extent of the Liberal opinion.
I know of no political opinion in any country which is universal, but the general European, opinion backed up, and is backing up, the idea of multi-racial government. [Interruption.] There will never be a universal attitude, of course, unless under some form of Soviet Government. The right hon. Member for Rochester and Chatham is a very experienced politician and should not be unduly distressed by a certain amount of clatter which has surrounded the formation of a multi-racial government. After all, people are always distressed by some of the things which are said by hon.


Members here. I find some difficulty in trying to persuade the right hon. Gentleman to be more sanguine, because one only has to look at him to see that he is energetic and sanguine, but this afternoon he prefers to wear the mantle of dark prophecy that does not suit him.
It has been said that parts if not all of the European population in Kenya are irresponsible. Is that not rather an offensive way of saying that they have not been charged with responsibilities under an official Government? The multiracial Government have these responsibilities fairly and squarely on their shoulders, and I think that they will rise to the scale of events and to their opportunities.
When the Government of Kenya recently issued their statement of policy, in was criticised in some quarters as containing nothing very new. But its real significance was pointed out by Mr. Ohanga, the African Minister for Community Development. I am now dealing with the right hon. Gentleman's statement that African opinion regards this matter with indifference. Mr. Ohanga said:
I do not agree. Although the words and ideas may be the same, the spirit and drive behind the policy is new. It is a declaration of policy from an inter-racial government that has never existed in the Colony before. This policy will do untold good, and after 10 years we might find Kenya very different from the Kenya in which we live today.
From all my reports, the new Government is working efficiently.
I will now deal with the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman that there should be a Minister of State from the Colonial Office resident in Nairobi. The suggestion is interesting, and shows that the right hon. Gentleman has allowed his imagination to play over these matters, but I do not think the suggestion is practicable or desirable in the circumstances of Kenya. The Governor is the bridge between my responsibilities and the Council of Ministers and the Legislature. I am answerable to this House for the actions of the Governor, in so far as they fall within my responsibility. If there was a Minister of State on the spot, I should equally be answerable to this House for his actions. Is that not so?

Mr. J. Griffiths: indicated assent.

Mr. Lyttelton: I am sure that such a Minister on the spot could not commit Her Majesty's Government without consultation with me. Therefore, if there was a Minister of State, it would only make an unnecessary link in the chain of responsibility. Furthermore—and this always seems to me to need saying, particularly when I am asked about such things as the dismissal of a clerk in a post office in some Colony—we are all aiming in this House, to whatever party we belong, at a system of handing over even more responsibility for the management of their own affairs to the peoples of the Colonial territories, including Kenya. Until they assume their responsibilities, they will never end the emergency.
We are prepared to help and indeed we are helping this idea in every way we can, including financial aid. I can imagine no step which would more affront the people of Kenya, and which would reverse the policy to which we are all committed, than that of sending a Minister of State to Nairobi. Even under the present system there are constant grumbles about the imposition of so-called Colonial Office rule, but if the unprecedented step was taken of trying to govern Kenya by supervising and directing the Government of Kenya by a political representative of Her Majesty's Government on the spot. I assure the Committee that all these feelings would, I think, rightly, be greatly increased and embittered.

Mr. Bottomley: May I make two observations? First of all, on the transference of power from this country to the Colony, 95 per cent. of the people in Kenya are Africans, and a hand-picked Minister is trying to represent them. I think the right way to transfer power is by winning the confidence of the Africans. That has not yet been done. As to the view which I expressed earlier, I am gratified by many of the things that the right hon. Gentleman has said this afternoon, but I think he himself would be bound to admit that the visit of the Parliamentary Mission, and particularly his own hard work on the spot, is to a large extent responsible for the great progress that has been made. All I was trying to say was that there may be advantages in having a Minister on the spot to encourage that sort of thing.

Mr. Lyttelton: All I was trying to say was that I do not think so. I think the opposite would occur. All the actions that a Minister of State in Nairobi took would have to be taken after consultation with me. I am only telling the right hon. Gentleman that his idea, though interesting and imaginative, does not commend itself in any way to Her Majesty's Government.
I apologise for having kept the Committee for so long.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman. I think our only complaint is that the Government have not provided us with some time to discuss this matter.

Mr. Lyttelton: There is not very much that is debatable. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, Parliamentary days are usually reserved for debates on which there is sharp disagreement. All I have been saying are the facts.
It is clear that the struggle for the minds of the people is being waged with great determination, and that it is comprehensively and imaginatively conceived. What we are striving to do is to progress soberly and surely; to do first things first; to restore law and order; to lay out on lines as far sighted as are within our capacity the foundations of social and economic prosperity for all Kenyans, and we are setting our sights high. We are trying in the political field to build up for the first time in Africa an effective multi-racial Government.
Those who have been to Kenya know something of the atmosphere of strain and tension, of prejudice and emotion in which this work had to be begun. It would greatly hearten me and all those who are carrying these grave responsibilities in Kenya if this House gave a warm word of endorsement and encouragement today to the broad and progressive policy that the new Government of Kenya are following. On details we may differ, but I suggest that on the main aims we are surely at one.

5.18 p.m.

Mr. James Johnson: The Secretary of State has indeed painted a very optimistic picture. He made some reference to the attitude of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley), but I think it is the Secretary of State who is perhaps

being sanguine. I congratulate him on many of his social and economic measures, but I am not able to go all the way with his optimism. I would remind him that Kenya is still a police State. There are about 40,000 persons in camps. I have been a school teacher, and I know that a headmaster can concentrate on the upper school and can put the "tough eggs" in detention and even expel them; this is easy, but there comes a time when they come back again. Many of these 40,000 who are in camps will have to come back again and will have to be reckoned with.
There are two wars going on. There is the shooting war against Mau Mau—and I am with the Colonial Secretary up to the hilt in that—and also the battle for the minds and hearts of the Kikuyu, and also the wider African society. Dr. Carothers' Report has been quoted, and I should like to quote from page 22, where he says:
I see no reason to doubt that, by and large, the people would have liked Mau Mau to win. Apart from many older people, and many whose interests are best served by adherence to the new administration, and many who have staunch personal loyalties, there is little general loyalty to Government But, although Kikuyu loyalty must tend on the whole to support Mau Mau, the people are far too shrewd and independent to be swept off their feet by enthusiasm for it.
While they are not enthusiastic about Mau Mau, when one says to African leaders, "Why do not you come in behind us and squash Mau Mau?" they hesitate, and say, "We cannot let our own people down." We must wipe out this "us" and "they" business—this black and white business—and the African outlook of not letting their own people down.
I welcome all the measures which the Colonial Secretary has mentioned, especially the close cover of administrative officers. Chief Kidaha, on the Dow Land Commission, would attribute the development of Mau Mau and the consequent creation of the state of emergency mainly to the thin cover and inadequacy of local district officers. The more such officers we have, and the less paper work they have to do, the better. If we looked upon the Kenya Civil Service as we did upon the Sudan Service we might get a much better team, and be able to work out a better and more hopeful way of life for these peoples of mixed stock in Kenya. In this context,


I welcome the process of villagisation. That will do a lot to give a more secure feeling to the Africans, especially the Kikuyu.
The subject upon which I want to speak next is that of white leadership. This is a delicate subject, both here and outside. I would just say to my many white friends over the water in Kenya that I have no intention of indulging in what I think they call "panga" politics. or of putting the constitutional cart before the Mau Mau horse. But as a Member of the Parliamentary Delegation, the thing which hit me hardest when went out there was not the fact that I had two Askaris outside my bedroom window every night, but the fact that the white population was so divided in its morale and so uneasy and unstable altogether.
I am glad that the Minister went out there and knocked a few heads together—both black and white—and got this multi-racial team together. But what a pity he could not get another African representative upon the Council of Ministers. Bishop Beecher has spoken of the desirability of having a parity of black, white and Asian Members, as in the case of Tanganyika—two, two, and two. We modestly asked for four, two, and two, but we could only get one African Minister to two Asiatic and three European.
Again the white leadership must show more imagination in this matter of African elections. It must be remembered that there are only 10,000 white families in a black sea of 6 million. It is essential that we should be loyal to the Africans if we are to work out our salvation together. We must give the Africans some hope. Not only, however, did I find that a most unworthy and unwholesome whispering campaign was going on against the African leaders, like Eliud Mathu, but that suspicion was being cast upon their ability to speak and stand for Africans who were off the stage, in the reserves and elsewhere.
At the moment, since the African Members in the Legislative Council are nominated by Sir Evelyn Baring, or whoever is Governor, what have we to lose by having direct elections for Kikuyu in 1956? We in the Delegation asked for an investigation into this matter, and I hope that it is

being carried out and that we shall be assured that direct elections will be held in 1956, because then, and then only, can the white community say, "Eliud Mathu is the man who speaks for the Kikuyu." At the moment they deny it and they say, "Mathu is not the Kikuyu leader." I hope for some assurance on those lines, and also a statement upon elections in 1956.
As to other candidates, some of the undoubted African leaders are now behind bars and in camps. It was my opinion—as it was of most of the Delegation—that some innocent K.A.U. leaders and other workers were caught up in this wholesale sweep. Surely some of them must be released before 1956, and could be allowed to stand for election and become the future leaders of the Africans in this community. At the same time Africans should be encouraged to develop their own political organisations.
I now turn to the question of the white leadership in connection with land. The Africans are land-hungry. There is, for example, congestion in Kiumbu. When I went to see the Koinange family there, I was welcomed. I had a most interesting talk with James Koinange and Charles, the local chief, the sons of the aged senior chief of the Kikuyu who is now in detention. There are 40,000 Africans in that location and little more than 40 square miles, and every black nationalist in Kikuyu land knows that there are a million Kikuyu on something less than 4,000 square miles of land. At the same time, there are less than 4,000 white families farming about 12,000 square miles in the Highlands, while there are some 60,000 Masai to the south on approximately 16,000 square miles of land. The facts concerning land hunger are there for all to see.
One can spend £40 million on the Tana Valley scheme or clear bracken in the north, but all the time one meets the Africans looking towards the Highlands. The present schemes outlined will not solve our difficulties. It would be a psychological gesture—and would it not pay enormous dividends?—if the white leaders could follow what was suggested in our White Paper.
I do not want to expel the white farmers; I want them to stay and I oppose the views expressed in the "New Statesman" about eviction of European


farmers. But I do not want the Highlands to be inviolate for the Europeans. If we have any unutilised or badly farmed land, we should give it to any African, European or Asian who can pass a test of good and competent husbandry. If he can farm, let him go in. If we did that it would convince the coloured people that this multi-racial Cabinet is working towards a multi-racial society in two, five or 10 years or more. It is nothing much to give, and it would be an enormous boon and stimulant to these peoples.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Would the hon. Member agree that there are also half a million Africans occupying quite a large proportion of the White Highlands?

Mr. Johnson: I do not deny that for one moment, but it is a fact that the Highlands—I do not call them the White Highlands—under Orders in Council and land treaties are inviolate for farmers of one colour. That is not good enough in a multi-racial society. It certainly will not be good enough in the future, when the Africans have more power to assert themselves.
I now want to deal with the subject of education. When an African comes into Nairobi out of the bush he says, "There is a Humber Snipe, and there is a Hillman Minx. Who do they belong to? They do not belong to the Africans; they belong to the white men." The same question arises about houses. The African asks himself, "How do I get a house like those?" He asks, "What is the White man's Juju?" The answer is a simple one—education. The African has not had sufficient in the past for many reasons.
I welcome, therefore, the provision to spend more money on education, and I would emphasise that there are two aspects of education that are specially important. The first is technical education, because without technicians and fitters we cannot undertake anything like adequate economic development. The second and even more important is women's education. How wisely was it said by Dr. Aggrey, "If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate the nation." Women pass on their education to their families, and so give a legacy to the future.

I hope, therefore, that of the £5 million that, I think, is to be spent upon African development a great part will be spent on secondary education and on women's training colleges, such as the fine college at Shiba in Nyanza, where there are some fine young girls. I was much struck by their appearance. They have beautiful hair and their eyes shine. With them and their like lies the future of African society. There were only 60 or 70. We want thousands of them in such colleges. They are so keen and so interested. One talks to them; they talk back, interestedly. Oh, if only we had spent more on education in the past. But we will not look back. Let us resolve to spend more—and willingly—in the future on education, particularly on the education of women.
There is an enormous thirst for education among Africans, and it is impossible to slake it. We are to have a multi-racial technical college at Nairobi. What about an experiment with a boys' secondary school? Let there not be girls at it. Let it be a boys' school, for one knows the difficulties of sex among young Africans. Let us have a State school with low fees, say, £20 a year, with a first-class stall, a school open to Indian, African and European boys aged from 15 to 18. There should be an old boys' association. We might then turn out some future leaders of Kenya, irrespective of colour, all working together, having had their school days in common with all that that means.
The last subject I want to touch on, in what I am trying to keep a short speech, is that of the colour bar. Talk to a Kenyan friend about the colour bar and he becomes a little uneasy, a little embarrassed. He will say, "There is no colour bar in Kenya. There is what one may call a culture bar." I wonder. It was suggested that Mr. Mathu and Mr. Gikonyu, Members of the Legislative Council, should take members of our delegation to the Norfolk Hotel, but Mr. Mathu said, "I cannot take you there." He was at Balliol for four years, and yet he did not feel it was the thing to do, himself to take us to the best hotel in Nairobi. The prospect embarrassed him.
That sort of bar must go. The white leaders are perfectly happy to go to Government House as guests of Sir Evelyn Baring and to meet these African


leaders and their wives. Why could they not mix more elsewhere—in their homes? That sort of association would make an enormous difference. I am not suggesting that we want to invite an untutored son of the bush into the Norfolk Hotel, to spit on the carpet; but we do feel that there are Africans, possibly scores, maybe hundreds, of them there, who can behave themselves well judging by our own standards. So let us have some imagination and mix with them more easily. That is the way to build up a multi-racial society for the future. We have a multi-racial Cabinet in Kenya, and we talk about a partnership of colours.
As I see it, those are the things that matter to the coloured peoples in Kenya—land, education, elections and the colour bar. We as whites could do more about those things at the moment. At the moment we could not even avoid such a thing as that offensive statement issued by the Electors' Union Central Office and General Irwin. However, least said, soonest mended. If the Secretary of State and Mr. Michael Blundell will pursue the course they have begun, I am convinced we can accomplish much. Behind Mr. Blundell there is a large body of liberal opinion in Kenya. It is inarticulate now, but I am convinced that if we pursue the course that has been begun and are much more generous to the coloured peoples, we shall find that they will respond, and we shall promote a truly multi-racial society in Kenya. Let them take courage in their hands.

5.35 p.m.

Mr. Edward Wakefield: The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) and I disagree over a wide range of subjects as far apart as Kenya and football. In one matter, however, I agree with him entirely, and if he will have the patience to wait a few moments he will see that I shall come to it later.
The visit to Kenya was the first occasion on which I have been a Member of a Parliamentary Delegation to a Colony. I have had a good deal of experience of Parliamentary Delegations, but it has always been at the receiving end. My first experience of them was in 1928 in India, when I was cross-examined and inspected by the Simon

Commission. I remember an occasion when the Commission was on its way to Lahore. I was the magistrate in charge of the police party that had considerable difficulty in restraining a mob from attacking the members of the Commission. The party included the present Leader of the Opposition. I hope the Labour Party is duly grateful to me for saving him on that occasion.

Mr. R. W. Sorensen: The hon. Gentleman could not have done better.

Mr. Wakefield: From 1928 to 1946 I had frequent experience of Parliamentary Delegations, and I knew, before going to Kenya, what peripatetic Parliamentarians looked like. I knew that they invariably wore the wrong clothes, and that they were in the habit of losing things and of always being late for appointments. I also knew they could ask very awkward questions, questions which I myself was not always in a position, as I should have been, to answer.
This, however, was the first occasion on which I was myself a member of such a delegation; and I felt conscious, first, of my own smallness, my own insignificance, in the presence of the great forces moving in Africa. I was also conscious, however, that though I myself might be insignificant, I was a member of a team which, in its collective capacity, was by no means insignificant, since it represented the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which has ultimate responsibility for resolving the conflicts in Kenya, and which has in the past, on the whole successfully, dealt with problems just as baffling as those which confronted us in Kenya.
In passing, I would pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), who is not able to be with us at this moment, for handling his team so tactfully. I am grateful, too, for the forbearance shown by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley) and for his patience in listening to expressions of opinion with which he could not possibly always have agreed. My own most constant companion was the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wigan (Mr. R. Williams). and I am sure we all regret deeply the illness which keeps him away from us today.
As a delegation we were, in spite of differences in our individual approach, united in our desire to understand what was happening in Kenya and to make to the Secretary of State a unanimous report of our considered views. Six months have passed since we came back from Kenya and during that period I have been engaged in a good deal of reflection. When I was in Kenya I must admit that the picture seemed confused and confusing. There were so many different problems to be dealt with. There was the military problem of how to identify the enemy, and to isolate him, and to deal with him. There were economic problems connected with rates of wages and industrial development. There was the agrarian problem, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Rugby, relating to the ownership and use of land. There was the political problem—the extent to which power should be delegated by this country to representatives in Kenya, and, within Kenya, how the power there should be divided between representatives of the different races. Inevitably, too, there were the sociological problems, the problems of colour and culture, and of the very nature of society.
These problems cannot be solved in isolation from each other. They interact and react on each other, and one has to view the picture as a whole. Only by looking at the picture as a whole can one get the problems in perspective. Looking at Kenya, as we do this afternoon, from a distance, it is clear, at least to me, that that country is going through a period of transition and adjustment. May I venture an analogy? In 1935, with my family, I was involved in the Quetta earthquake. In a few seconds 25,000 to 30,000 people had lost their lives. The chaos and confusion that ensued were indescribable. What had happened? Certain great natural forces had been at work. A vast mountain range had subsided an inch or two and those were the consequences.
Kenya is now suffering from an earthquake of another kind. One civilisation is imposing itself upon another. A new culture is ousting the old, and Kenya is suffering the spasms and pangs that inevitably accompany such an adjustment. May I commend to the Committee a book by M. Mannoni? It is called Psychologie de la Colonisation. In that book M. Mannoni explains what happens

when what Sir Henry Maine calls the "society of status" is impinged upon by what Maine calls the "society of contracts." The "society of status" was the kind of society which this country knew in the 12th and 13th centuries. where an individual was born in a particular station in life and remained there for the rest of his life.
What happens when a static society of that nature comes into contact with a free and open society, where an individual has personality and value in his own right? In his study of that problem, M. Mannoni says much which, in my view, is relevant to what is happening in Kenya. Generally, it is traders, or perhaps missionaries, who first come into contact—who first came into contact—with the static societies of Africa. They were resisted—that is natural—and the magic and witchcraft which the African tribesmen had been taught to believe in were used against these invaders. They proved ineffective, and so the African transferred his allegiance to the white man's magic. He looked up to the white man as possessing a superior kind of witchcraft.
How was the white man's witchcraft exercised? What was the key to this new kingdom? The hon. Member for Rugby suggested the answer—education. And so the African sought education; and he also sought Christianity, because the people who educated were, to a large extent, the missionaries. At that stage the African looked up to the white man as the representative of a superior civilisation, and race relations at such a period of time are generally happy. It is a period of paternal administration. I experienced it in India as recently as the 1930s in the remote parts of that continent, where the Westerner was still looked up to. The district officer was regarded as "Man-Bap "—the father and mother of his people. That relationship still exists in the remoter parts of Kenya where the older settlers have cared for and looked after their dependants with exemplary diligence.
But that stage soon passes. The African became partially educated and partially Christian. I say "partially" because education is still to the African, merely a means of making money. It is not yet an end in itself. It is a means of acquiring techniques which will enable him to share in the white man's power. It is


not more than that at a certain interim stage: and equally Christianity is only partial, because the African's understanding of Christianity is built upon the old belief in magic and witchcraft. I ask the Committee to remember that I am only making generalisations. They do not by any means apply to everyone. To people brought up in homes where there is belief in witchcraft and magic Christianity is simply another form of magic.
If I may venture on another analogy, a schoolboy, brought up in England, and with our long tradition of Christian civilisation behind him, may well pray to God to grant that he will make a century in the next school cricket match.

Mr. Sorensen: Magic.

Mr. Wakefield: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will listen. The prayer is not answered. But the boy does not automatically reject Christianity because God has not answered his prayer. He goes and practicises at the nets. He believes that God helps those who help themselves. But the African boy who prays for success on a hunting expedition and looses off his ammunition—whether it be in the form of bullets or arrows—and fails to hit his target, thinks that his magic is not operating—that it is an inferior magic—and so he rejects the whole system.
That is only an analogy, and I do not wish to press it too far. But I give it as an example of the kind of stage of mental development with which we have to deal. It gives us some idea of how a movement like Mau Mau could come into being. It originates from a sense of dissatisfaction with the new culture which has been offered, a sense of frustration and failure to develop one's full individuality. That arises from this conflict between two civilisations and two cultures. Mau Mau is not an isolated instance. There was something of the same kind in the Hau Hau movement in New Zealand, and I dare say that the Indian mutiny of 1857 was a phenomenon of similar origin. In Kenya the conflict first became apparent among the Kikuyu because they were the tribe who had advanced furthest in their steps towards acquiring Western civilisation, and they had the closest contact with Europeans.
Some hon. Members of this Committee may think—and I am perfectly certain

that many members of the European community in Kenya will think, if these words ever reach them—"What is the use of all this theorising?. There is an immediate crisis in being and immediate measures are necessary to deal with it." I would say that if we can understand the essential nature of the problem as a whole, it is more likely that we shall be able to deal wisely with the pressing problems of the moment.
We are all agreed about the limitations of what can be effected by military action: but unless we are prepared to contemplate the withdrawal of all Europeans and Asians from Kenya, then the basic problem which arises can be solved only by the reorganisation of African society in such a manner as to make it compatible with Western civilisation and with our Western conception of a free society. How can that be done?
Here I come to my point of agreement with the hon. Member for Rugby. I believe that the most important of all the things that can be done lies in the field of female education. It is absolutely essential that the education which boys get in the schools should not conflict with what they have learned earlier from their mothers. There has to be some synthesis between teaching in the home and teaching in the school, and that can be brought about only by the education of girls and also, I think, to some extent, by adult education of African women. I believe that the wives of settlers could perform an immensely useful task by carrying on social work among the wives of their husbands' employees. That is not asking something which is impossible. In some places where I stayed in Kenya, I found that was being done and was having most admirable results.
I have already taken up a lot of the time of the Committee, and I will not expand the point about female education, because I want to come to another measure which I think could be taken to bring the African outlook into closer accord with our own. There is, of course, no single remedy for the disease I have diagnosed. There can be no panacea. But there is one measure which could, in my view, do more than anything else—far more than the millions of pounds coming from the British taxpayers' pockets


—to bring African society into harmony with that of the West. It is a perfectly simple administrative measure.
The delegation outline their proposals in this regard in paragraph 70 of their Report. We recommend that there should be carried out what is called a "cadastral" survey. No one need be frightened by this term. I believe that a cadastral survey was carried out in Britain in the 13th century or the 12th century, I forget which. If it was carried out in Britain before the middle ages, it should be capable of being carried out in Kenya in the 20th century. It was certainly carried out in India in the 16th century.

Mr. M. Folliek: The cadastral survey that the hon. Gentleman refers to was the Doomsday Book and it was compiled in 1086 under William the First.

Mr. Wakefield: I am indebted to the hon. Gentleman for having given me such precise details.
A cadastral survey consists merely in making a record of the rights of landowners, whether individual or communal, the rights of tenants and occupiers of land, recording the boundaries of their holdings, assessing all the cultivated and uncultivated land, the quality of the soil and the nature of the crops grown. It is a factual record and is an essential basis of all good administration in a community which is predominantly rural. I see the hon. Member for Rugby concealing a smile. May I remind him that he was associated with me in making this recommendation, and I hope that I shall have his support when I outline to the Committee some of the advantages which, I am certain, would flow from the adoption of this recommendation.
First, in relation to the building of a new African society. The status of the individual—and that matters enormously at the present stage of African development—is enhanced if he has defined private rights in land instead of being just a unit in a tribal society. He becomes a man and landowner in his own right. Secondly—and this is very important—when there has been a detailed survey such as we have suggested, it becomes much easier to concentrate communities into villages.
I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that it was proposed to establish 320 new villages of which 140 have already been established. He pointed out the advantage of protection that would derive from concentrating communities in villages, and he also reminded us that it would be much easier, when dealing with villages rather than scattered isolated hamlets, to institute medical, health and educational services. Looking to the future, there is something even more important which may grow from the establishment of villages. It is not looking too far into the future to suppose that the more prosperous of these villages will develop in time into small market towns which, in turn, will develop their own secondary industries. Then we shall have a solution of the problem which has been agitating so many people who think about Kenya—the problem of dealing with the inflow of male labour into the single big industrial centre of Nairobi, where there are now five men to every one woman. If we can establish these villages and let them grow into small market towns, that problem may well be on its way to solution.
Another point is that, on the basis of such a survey and the recording of rights, it would be much easier to develop the consolidation of holdings, which has already been started. It is really tragic to see individual peasants with a patch of land up here, a patch of land out there and another one three or four miles away. How can they make the best agricultural use of little isolated patches of land? Consolidation of holdings will bring innumerable benefits to individual peasants.
I have spoken of the advantages of our proposal for a land settlement in relation to the building of a new African society. It has equally great advantages in relation to the Administration. The district officer would be forced by the nature of his duties into the closest possible contact with the people. He would have to learn their language and understand their customs. There has been in the past no such compulsion on district officers in Africa.
In the second place, taxation based on an assessment of the productivity of land provides the Government with a permanent and expanding source of revenue. One of the things which horrified me about Kenya was the existence of the


poll tax. Surely we have reached the stage when people should be taxed not as though they were so many head of cattle, but in accordance with their capacity to pay. The cadastral survey, which the delegation advocated, could form the basis for a new system of taxation which would be fair to the governed and advantageous to the Administration.
A third point is the collection of land revenue. The administration of this system would involve the employment of a considerable number of relatively low-paid African officials who would be able to perform their duties from their own homes in the villages, and who could be given, perhaps, a badge of rank. The value of that would be psychologically enormous, because we would have Africans in the lower social grades taking part in the Administration, and then, in African eyes, the Administration would become not just "they," as it is now, but "we." As Dr. Carothers says in his Report, when Africans feel that they are part of the Administration, loyalty becomes possible. It is not possible now.
We all think that power should be shared. Because we are politicians we think in the main in terms of political power, the exercise of power as a result of elections; but to the Kikuyu living in a remote hamlet of the native reserve, power exercised by a politician in Nairobi does not really mean very much. If he could be given power over his neighbours, as he could be given it in an administration which made use of subordinate revenue officials, that is something which would mean a lot to him. From that subordinate status he would have the chance of rising to a higher job. In fact, a subordinate African revenue staff could play exactly the same part as N.C.Os. used to play in an Indian regiment—a vital link between ruler and ruled. I hope that my right hon. Friend will bring some of these points relating to land administration to the notice of the Royal Commission.
In conclusion, I repeat what I said earlier. Looking at Kenya from a distance, as we are doing today, it seems quite clear that there is now a period of adjustment in the life of the Colony. The current crisis presents an opportunity, unlikely to recur, of moulding African society into a new form, in harmony with our own ideas of a Christian civilisation;

and we must "take the current while it serves, or lose our ventures."

6.2 p.m.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. E. Wakefield) and find myself in entire agreement with the sentiments therein expressed. My only regret is that in a short debate like this his speech was delivered rather slowly. With that one animadversion, however, I am in complete agreement with what the hon. Member said.
The hon. Member took up the question of the education of women, a point which was stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson). I could not agree more, and I say that as one who has visited Kenya quite recently. What I should like to know is whether anybody can tell us how it is to be done. There is quite a lot of tribal reaction against the education of girls, and this has to be overcome. Any steps that can be taken by people who have experience there should be taken, and we ought to start educating the women. There is not the slightest doubt that one of the strongholds of Mau Mau, particularly in the Kikuyu, more so than in the Embu and Meru, is amongst the women.
We are having a very short debate and I think that that is desirable. I hope, however, that in the autumn the Government will see their way to arrange for a full debate on the Report of the Parliamentary Delegation. It is an important document and merits a full debate. When we couple with that the Report of the Land Commission, we could very well have a full debate on Kenya.
The first reason I am against a long debate now is that the new multi-racial Government has only just started and I think it ought to have time to run itself in. Therefore, we ought all to be very careful in our remarks today, so that we give them the opportunity to govern and to take the first step in this great inter-racial experiment.
The second reason is that the Governor has just returned after a long illness. Having met him and knowing his wide and liberal views, I feel that he should be given a chance to take firm hold of the helm, so that he can direct the way and be the liaison between the Colonial


Secretary and the new inter-racial Government. A third reason is that the emergency, to judge from the Colonial Secretary's report to the Committee this afternoon, is apparently becoming less acute and looks now to be well on the way to being eliminated.
The problem of Kenya, as I see it, is that a primitive people are trying within 70 years to arrive at the position that it has taken us 700 years to reach. It simply cannot be done. I am not a Fabian, but I say in this connection that we ought to follow the inevitability of gradualness rather than rush into these things.
One of the strange features of the troubles in Kenya is that its problems arise out of the white man's humanitarianism. Had it not been for the presence of the British, there would have been inter-tribal warfare and no attempt at civilisation. There would have been no hospitals and no attempt to eradicate disease. The development of the African—we ought not to apologise for it—is due to the fact that the white man, and particularly the British people, are in Africa. So far as we can co-operate and help each other, to that extent and in direct proportion will the African reach a higher standard of civilisation. That aspect is often forgotten by those who criticise the white people in Kenya.
I wish to raise two points with regard to the emergency. I am very pleased that "Operation Anvil" took place. My right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) and I made the suggestion in a little document that was circulated to many Members as long ago as October. According to the reports that I have received, that operation has been a success. What I am a little concerned about, however, is the number of escapes that take place from the prisons. This is a matter that should be attended to.
My next point to the Colonial Secretary is a question of administration concerning Nairobi. Is the right hon. Gentleman quite sure that the City of Nairobi is not too big? It has a 52 miles' perimeter. I think there is a case for the breaking down of the City of Nairobi into smaller units and that this would help considerably.
Fortunately, infiltration into other tribes has not taken place on a big scale. How

can it be prevented? One of the reasons there has been a slight infiltration into the Masai-Kikuyu fringe is, I think, that too few of the district commissioners in the area can speak Masai. It is important that we get district commissioners who can speak the local tribal languages.
I have not time to go into the faults and failures of the information services in Kenya. They have been rectified considerably by the work of the East Africa Office and other people here in London. At any rate, the people of Britain now know that the Mau Mau are not boy scouts, but it has taken a little while to sink in.
To deal with the question of information on the spot, I think that there is a need for the development of newsreels. The Africans are very keen on going to the cinema. Let us have a few travelling cinema newsreels. I speak against the background that Kenya is a primitive country, and I hate any attempt at censoring the Press or anything of the kind and I do not want to be misunderstood, but prima facie there is a case for subsidising some of the African newspapers so that really factual and objective news can be pin before these primitive people, many of whom are now beginning to be able to read and write.
Many references have been made to the question of land, and particularly to the White Highlands. As far as I am concerned, I stand by the statement made, I think, on 7th March, 1946, by Mr. Creech Jones, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies. I should like to know whether what was then stated to be our policy is still the policy of the present Government. What has to be realised with regard to the White Highlands is that in times of drought or bad crops, Kenya just cannot be fed without the help of the European farmers in the White Highlands. Historically, it was never their land, it was the whites who went there and developed it.
When I went through the White Highlands, I saw large units which were not being too well farmed. Obviously, something must be done to implement the Troup Report. Where sections of the White Highlands are being badly farmed, the people responsible should be dispossessed for bad husbandry. Indeed, there is a case for breaking down some of the larger estates into smaller units.

Mr. J. Johnson: Would my hon. Friend allow any farmer, whatever his colour—providing that he passed the test of good husbandry—to tender for land to the Land Board in Kenya?

Mr. Hobson: No. There is quite a considerable amount of unalienated land in Kenya still available for Africans. We have some form of agreement with these people.
I referred to the statement made by Mr. Creech Jones, and I repeat that I stand by that statement. From what I have seen, I am not prepared to go any further, but I do say that in cases of bad husbandry the people concerned should be dispossessed. I repeat also that there is a case for breaking up the larger farms. Indeed, steps have been taken already to accomplish that, at Molo.
On the question of African land, we have also to consider the question of education. As has been rightly said, we do not want Africans coming to this country merely for the purpose of being trained in law and commerce. We want to turn them into good farmers and craftsmen. That is the prior need of Kenya. We must make them into farmers: that is the most important urgent requirement.
Further steps must, of course, be taken, with regard to irrigation in order to bring more land into use. I remember one remark made to me by a loyal Kikuyu who had been farming and who was brought here for the Coronation. When asked what had impressed him most in London, the Coronation procession, the London Underground, or what, he replied, "A goat that gave more milk than my cow." That is the problem in a nutshell, and I hope that steps will be taken to see that the Africans are given more education in the matter of farming.
With regard to the economic development of Kenya, I believe that it is bound to be essentially an agricultural country. There has been a geological survey, but up to the moment, unfortunately, very few minerals have been discovered. Therefore, the economy of Kenya is bound to be an agricultural one. But that needs capital, too, and in order to attract the necessary capital there must be political stability, and no anarchy.
Regarding secondary industries, I do not think that there is great scope for them. There could be, perhaps, a little

cement-making, some refining of oil near Mombasa, and canning. But such projects would not employ many people, and I think it would be foolish to lead people to believe that there is any great scope for secondary industries there.
I now wish to say a word about the trade union situation in Africa. Quite frankly, I am more concerned about the economic development of the country and about the economic well-being of the people than I am about the constitutional position. I am one of those strange people who believe that political liberty is a by-product of economic freedom, and that much can be done in that direction. I hope that the trade unions will be encouraged, and that we shall arrive at a stage where there can be free negotiations between the trade unions and the employers instead of having wages fixed by the Government by Order in Council.
I am not saying that this can be done all over the country, but it can certainly be done in Mombasa and in Nairobi, particularly with regard to the men employed in the railway and marine shops. I was present at what might be termed a shop stewards' committee which was entirely multi-racial. They were employees of a firm which does the docking and landing at Mombasa, and they were discussing such things as dirty money and mortgages for buying bicycles on hire purchase. I hope that that sort of negotiation will be encouraged.
I also want to say a little about the constitutional rights of the white trade unionists out there. My own union has a number of its members in Africa. Most of these people, of course, work on the railways and cannot take part in any political life, because, it is argued, they are civil servants. I think that wants looking at. We should soon run into trouble if the railwaymen in this country who work in a nationalised industry did not have the chance of becoming Members of this House, or of sitting in the Chair. I hope that steps will be taken to give these white trade unionists in Africa their political freedom.
There seems to be an impression among some people in this country that Africans cannot grow cash crops. In point of fact, the best coffee grown last year was grown by an African. They have a perfect right to grow pyrethrum, tea and coffee, and I think it is just as


well that those facts should be made known.
The housing situation in Africa, just as in this country, is a dire problem, but much good work has been done, particularly by the Nairobi City Council. After all, there are not many whites in Nairobi. I suppose that they number only about 23,000 out of a population of 145,000. The city council are to spend £2 million on housing development in five years. That is a considerable sum of money. I was greatly impressed by the work that had been done in Nairobi in housing the people and in taking them from their mud and wattle huts in North Nyanza, particularly by the tea companies. It is unfortunate that there has been so much bad propaganda about Nairobi. That being so, one is constrained to point out some of the good things that have been and are being done, and the steps being taken for the benefit of the Africans.
I share the views expressed throughout the Committee today wishing this racial co-operation every success. I found a great number of liberal-minded white people in Kenya. They are working hard, and they are not there for amusement. Many of them, when they left this country, were ordinary working people who went to Africa to advance themselves. Like most Britishers who go abroad, they did not, I believe, immediately cast out all sense of decency and fair play. In point of fact, they went abroad to help the Africans to progress.
Not a single discordant Note has been sounded in the Committee today, and I think that the message can go out to Kenya that we will give them all the help we can to make this experiment a success and to make the life of the white, the African and the Asian happy and prosperous. If we do that, we shall certainly have been worthy of the trust placed in us so many years ago.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: I am sure the whole Committee will agree with the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) who has just delivered in the right spirit a most interesting and extremely constructive speech. Time runs on and I shall certainly be brief, as we all want to hear the Minister of State, who is to sum up this useful debate.
I should like to start by saying to the Committee that I only have the right to intervene in this debate in that for a brief period last October and over the Christmas period I was a political nomad in Kenya and Tanganyika, trying to get some appreciation and understanding of the problems which have been expressed to the Committee this afternoon. In the course of doing that, amongst other things, I pursued part of my profession and cross-examined Mau Mau detainees at the Athi River detention camp. I visited a considerable number of Africans as well as meeting many others, and out of these limited experiences and from listening to Europeans I formed a number of opinions. From these I hope I can put some constructive suggestions to the Minister. In each case they are suggestions which have been considered out there and to some extent have the approval of various organisations and experienced persons.
To me it seems we are aiming to do three things in Kenya. The first is to reestablish family life, which to a large extent has broken down. Secondly, we are trying to re-establish the essential community life, particularly in the villages, which has been so interestingly described this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary. Thirdly, we have also to regain—I think that is the right word—respect for the government. By that I do not mean the Governor or the Colonial Secretary, for in Kenya there is a great deal of respect in both cases, but I mean for the word "government." In order to pursue those three objects, there are a few suggestions I should like to throw out for consideration.
I think it is true that with many of the Africans government as such is suspect at the present time, and I believe that a much wider use of the voluntary organisations to be found in East Africa would be of material assistance to the Government in getting the right kind of relations and the right approach to our problems. These voluntary organisations can assist in looking after the health of the people. and I invite the Minister to consider carefully whether the Government would be prepared to give a grant to the Red Cross in order to provide welfare services. It sends out teams of two, a welfare worker and a nurse who go into the plantations and places where the workers are, and


these teams are able to give considerable assistance to the welfare of the people.
Secondly, I invite my right hon. Friend to consider an extension of youth clubs and of the Y.M.C.A., particularly in Nairobi, where the people meet, for it is amongst the youth particularly that the troubles arising from Mau Mau will otherwise continue.
I also ask my right hon. Friend to consider this aspect of the matter. I found in Nairobi that it was easy for a man to get a licence to work, but having got it there was no work for him. Sometimes he joined a trade union, though many did not. The trouble and the thuggery arises from the fact that there are far too few jobs for the number of men in Nairobi. I ask the Minister to bear that point in mind, and to see whether he can limit the number of men in the city in order to find employment for them, and thereby enhance morale.
I will now pass from that point. I hope the Committee will forgive me for being disjointed, but I want to cover as much ground as I can. I would ask that the curriculum in the schools should be carefully supervised, particularly to sec that a standard curriculum is laid down for the schools in Kenya. It seems to me that it is essential that the African, who has no knowledge of the history of Africa, and no tradition and background in that respect, should not be misled by propaganda which in many respects has been extremely dangerous. It lies behind a great deal of the problem.
More important than that is to see that the teachers who are put into these schools are of the finest character, even though their learning may not be very great. It is their character that is important, because, after all, the great majority of these children are going to learn to read and write and perhaps do a manual job. We can expect no more than that, and therefore the character of the teacher will play an important part with them. I put forward that suggestion as one likely to help over the future problems in Kenya.
I entirely agree—and it seems to be agreed throughout the Committee—with the Government's policy that the villages must be the basis of community life. In that connection there are three vital features. The local lord of the manor must be the mayor in the village and he

must have the gift of leadership. Secondly, there is the local policeman. He must be there and must be known. We should not allow these policemen to be moved round too often; they should be widely known and able to maintain law and order.
Thirdly, there are the district officers. They must have a longer period in office in one place and not be moved about. Up in the district of the Sukh three years ago district officers were moved many times; and in the years 1948–49 there were 10 district officers there. It was thought that the Sukh were a nice, amiable tribe and would not get into trouble. That is the wrong attitude. There is no doubt at all from what the Colonial Secretary has said that there will be a change of policy, and it seems likely that district officers will be allowed to remain in the same district. I understand, however, that in the Colonial Service they must be able to secure adequate promotion by going to a higher job and that they have in the past lost that if they were kept too long in one place. Surely that difficulty can be overcome in the general interest of the Service.
I should like now to deal with Mau Mau and I have three points here. This was what I investigated more than anything else and I was immensely impressed by Toxi Lewis, the Commissioner of Prisons, and the staff at the Athi River Camp when I saw their work on that job. First of all the men who have been screened are being sent back into the reserve. Many of them unfortunately are finding no work and are starving. These facts I can confirm to the Minister, for there is abundant evidence. I suggest that they should go back either to the farm or, if into the reserve, they must be assured of work.
My next point is concerned with what I call the confirmed thugs in Mau Mau. There were 500 or 600 of them in the camp and they were confirmed criminals. Anyone with experience of the police courts and our criminal courts had only to look at them and straight away one could see that they were thugs. There was even a facial difference between them and the other men in the camp.
In my opinion, these men must be sent to a separate community where they will remain for the rest of their lives. But if


they are to be sent there, they must be provided with a suitable amount of land to develop and to give them an occupation. The Tana River scheme provides an admirable opportunity for this type of thing. That is why I suggest that we should segregate the worse type of these men into a separate community, at the same time providing them with an opportunity to earn a living.
I pass from that to two other points before I sit down. With regard to those men who have been properly reformed, let them by all means go back to community life, but let us introduce the system which is worked in the Belgian Congo, where a man is licensed and cannot move from a district without obtaining the permission of the district officers. That would give a sort of half-way house between those who are perfectly free and those who are detained. I invite consideration of that system in the Belgian Congo, as it might very well be established in Kenya.
Lastly, I want to say a word about race relations. The whole question is related to the creation of an African middle class. We shall not make much progress until one is created and we get out of the idea that holds in the Hindu mind—the idea which exists at present that he can use the native purely as a hack to do a job. We have to get the Hindu to appreciate that the native has the right to be an artisan, and unless we are prepared to do that we shall not succeed in creating an artisan class.
As to the people themselves and the question of the colour bar or culture bar, let us stress the importance of the purity of the coloured races, of the Bantu races, and let us establish the customs and traditions which they knew in the past but which they are losing at the present time. Let us not seek to Westernise them: let us seek to restore the dress, the dances, the food and the customs of the Bantu races and of the Asians there, so that we may all live in racial harmony one with another.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: I wish to apologise to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who would have liked to take part in the debate. I have given an undertaking to my colleagues who want to discuss other matters

that we shall close the debate at 7 o'clock, and I want to keep that undertaking. But I make the strongest protest against the fact that the Government have not provided time for discussion of this Report when Parliament as a Parliament has sent a delegation to Kenya. We should have been provided before now with a full day in which to discuss this very important Report. I am sure that the Secretary of State must have urged that upon his colleagues. I hope that when we come back in the autumn we shall have the Report of the Royal Commission on land in Kenya. We must then have more than one day to discuss these very important matters.
I had some part in suggesting to the leader of my party some time ago the desirability of this Parliament as a Parliament, with its prestige, sending a delegation to Kenya. I believe that that was a right suggestion and I want to pay a sincere tribute, as I am sure we all do, to the members of the delegation from all sides of the House of Commons. They took up a difficult task during a difficult and dangerous period, and they have done a splendid job. I want to thank each one of them for the way the delegation worked as individuals and as a team. Realising, as I do, what political controversy means, I know that it must have taken a supreme effort to arrive at a unanimous decision. The delegation's Report is a valuable one. It contains a large number of constructive suggestions and quite a number of very important proposals, some of which have been adopted already. I hope that others will be adopted in the future.
I regret that all members of the delegation have not had an opportunity to speak in this debate, and I am particularly sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. R. Williams) is not able to be here today. From all members of the delegation we have had a clear indication that he played a notable part in their discussions. We all hope that he will soon recover and be back in this Chamber.
We have had from the Secretary of State a survey for which I wish to thank him. It was a long, interesting and important survey which I am sure he will appreciate we shall want time to consider. On the whole, he painted an optimistic—I hope not too optimistic—picture of the


position in Kenya at present. He created the impression that we are moving towards the end of the emergency. Some time ago there was a possibility—I put it no higher than that—that the end might have come quickly by surrender. There was a chance but that chance was missed. All kinds of suggestions are made as to how and why it was missed.
It is a very great pity that it was missed. We are all at one in wanting to defeat Mau Mau, and there are two alternatives. The emergency can grind on towards an end, and none of us would care to forecast how long that would take. The other alternative is that there still might be a chance of surrender. If there is such a chance, I hope that it will be seized with both hands. The sooner and more decisively the emergency is brought to an end the better it will be for the future of Kenya, for ourselves and for everybody concerned.
Many suggestions and criticisms have been made about other aspects of the emergency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley) opened the debate with a speech to which it was well worth listening. I hope that it will have many more readers than the audience that it had this afternoon. All other speeches that have been made have also put forward constructive proposals to deal with this situation. I want to thank my right hon. Friend and all who have spoken for their suggestions.
I have discussed the subject of detention camps privately with the Secretary of State. I hope that he will take note of the warning which my right hon. Friend sounded about the danger of having large numbers of men gathered together in these detention camps with inevitably only the very thinnest supervision. I hope that steps will be taken to avoid that danger. I have been disturbed also about one other aspect of what is, in a sense, part of the operations against Mau Mau, namely, the number of men and women who are sent back to the reserves. Those who know Kenya well tell me that they are very disturbed about the dangerous possibilities of overcrowding in the reserves. I hope that whoever replies to the debate will be able to say something on that subject.
The Secretary of State asked me to send out a message of goodwill to the

new Government of Kenya. I join in sending that message. In addition to the Report of the Parliamentary Delegation, we have all read other reports on Kenya published recently. There is no end to the reports on the subject. I hope that we have all read the Carothers Report, That Report puts the problem in Kenya, in Africa, and elsewhere in a sentence when it states:
But it has become only too clear that when European influence impinges on the African, his whole cultural machinery is apt to collapse quite quickly.
There is the essence.
We have gone to Africa and taken our civilisation there—all of it, and it is not all good either here or when we take it elsewhere—and it inevitably has the consequence of breaking up the primitive organisation of the people in these territories. Their life is broken up. The responsibility and trust that we bear is that if we go there and take our civilisation with us and break their life, we must integrate them into our own life, otherwise they are in a no-man's land which creates Mau Mau and all the rest of it. That is the problem that faces Kenya now.
In the emergency we have now the new Government and I welcome it. I pay my tribute to all those who have had the courage to join together in beginning to build a multi-racial society in Kenya. Having taken the first step, there is no going back after this emergency. No country, including our own, goes back after an emergency of this kind. Therefore, -they have to go forward. They can use the development plan. I hope that development plan will be carried out speedily. In his report this afternoon, the Secretary of State indicated to us that very considerable progress has been made.
I wish to say how much and how warmly I welcome the proposals and the progress which has been made towards villagisation. What an awful word; why cannot we call it "community development" or "community building"? That is what we are seeking. We are seeking to replace the tribal organisation which we have broken up by another kind of organisation. I hope the Secretary of State will give a direction that this awful word shall not be used any more but


that we shall speak of establishing and building among African people communities in which they can settle together and develop a new community life to replace the old which has been destroyed and which can be replaced after the emergency through which we are passing.
I agree entirely with the emphasis put on education, particularly the education of women. This question disturbed me the first time I went to Africa. There is a small quota of women to train in the colleges. This is of immense importance. I know the difficulties, but they have to be overcome. I particularly emphasise the importance of technical education in all its aspects. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) said that what Africa wants is a middle class. He will not mind my saying that we want to help them to build a more democratic community. We cannot build it, but we can help them to do so. The hon. Member will not mind my being class-conscious for a moment. I believe that the real core of a stable society is an artisan class. In Africa we shall have doctors, lawyers and all the professions, but where is the artisan class, which is immensely important—the technicians, as we call them these days? I hope that every encouragement will be given to the development of education in all its aspects, with particular emphasis on technical education and on tackling the very difficult, but supremely important, problem of the education of women.
We are defeating Mau Mau and we hope that soon it will be defeated, but what is to happen then? The only people in Africa who have not got a medium for political expression are the Africans. Europeans have a medium and Asians have a medium, but Africans have not. I am not going to reopen the question whether the Kenya African Union should have been banned or not, but we are looking to the future and, with 1956 not far off, we are building a multi-racial Government in which the Europeans have political organisations. They are creating new organisations and they have an electorate to which they are answerable. Asians have their political organisations and an electorate to which they are answerable, but we cannot build responsible African leadership without African

organisations and without an African electorate in some form or another to whom their representatives can be held responsible.
I do not withdraw a word of what I have said but repeat it now: I think that one of the mistakes was that we did not provide for an African organisation by which Africans could be represented. I think that could be done and I hope that it will be done. Unless we create it, or allow it to be created, above board, in the fresh air, organisations will be formed underground, in the cellars and in the bush. I hope that every encouragement will be given to Africans to build their own political organisation and to build it quickly. Then we could have all three races with their own political organisations working together in government, and this emergency—tragic as it has been—could be made the beginning of the building of a new and better Kenya.

6.45 p.m.

The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. Henry Hopkinson): I think the speeches in today's debate have shown very clearly that hon. Members on all sides of the Committee are agreed on the two objectives to which my right hon. Friend referred at the beginning of his speech. That is to say, first, the short-term aim of suppressing the terrorist rebellion and destroying root and branch this evil and barbaric thing which we know as Mau Mau; and, secondly, the long-term objective of building up a genuine, multi-racial system of government, appropriate to the requirements of the Colony, in which members of all races will be able to play their full part. On those two aims we are all agreed. And I believe that the majority of the Committee also agree on the methods to be employed in both. The immediate military situation and the complementary measures which are entailed, to which my right hon. Friend referred, have already been dealt with in much detail. I think they meet with the general approval of this Committee. The by-products of this emergency—the camps, the agricultural works, the irrigation measures and so on—are all bringing great benefits to the community in Kenya.
In this connection, I should like to correct a small point which arose out of the speech of my right hon. Friend.


There seems to have been some confusion as to whether the grants, particularly the grant of £5 million for agricultural purposes, are debatable in this House or not. The fact is that a part of that grant comes from the Colonial Services Vote, but the larger part comes from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: Is there to be an occasion when we shall have an opportunity to discuss the recent grant to the Kenya Government? Will there be a Supplementary Estimate? When can we have a discussion on this matter?

Mr. J. Griffiths: There will have to be a Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Hopkinson: I think that is so, but I will look into the point and let the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) know.
On the military side, with its complementary measures, we are following the same methods which have been adopted in Malaya under the skilful guidance of General Templer, and which have transformed the scene in that Territory. Of course, the problem in Kenya is different in many ways. It is a larger and more formidable problem and one which is far less easy to understand. But many of the same principles apply. Military success against the terrorists has to be matched by measures to re-educate and humanise the thousands of unfortunate men and women who have been led so wickedly and recklessly down these evil paths. That was what my right hon. Friend called "the struggle for the minds." At the same time, political development must go forward. It must not outpace social and economic development, but go forward at the same time.
Her Majesty's Government have been greatly assisted in these tasks by the Report of the Parliamentary Delegation, which we are discussing. Several Members of the Delegation have given the Committee speeches notable for their eloquence and content. It is true to say that many of the remedies advocated by the delegation were already under way and have simply been pressed forward to a conclusion. But many others were new suggestions which have been followed up with success. As a result of this visit and of the mass of information coming out

about Kenya—I would refer, for example, to the report of Dr. Carothers which so many of us have read with interest and to the work which the East African Office are doing in London—there is much more known about Kenya and its problems than ever before. But this afternoon we have had an opportunity of hearing new points raised with which I will try to deal as best I can in the short time remaining to me.
Several hon. Members have referred to the trade union situation in Kenya. As in the past, it is still the policy of the Kenya Government to encourage the development of trade unions, and that fact has been recently reaffirmed by the new Council of Ministers.

Mr. Brockway: Does that go as far as the delegation advocated, of releasing the trade union leaders in detention?

Mr. Hopkinson: I was just coming to that point. I recollect very well the recommendation, which was for a review of the records of the trade unionists detained under emergency regulations with a view to releasing those not implicated in Mau Mau. The records have been examined and there is not a single trade unionist detained who was not directly involved in Mau Mau.

Mr. Brockway: No.

Mr. Hopkinson: To turn to other aspects of the trade union question, wages councils have been set up on the British model to conduct a full investigation into trades, including tailoring and road transport. As many hon. Members know, the T.U.C. is in close contact with the trade union movement in Kenya. One of the officials visited it only last April and there is a permanent I.C.F.T.U. representative in Kenya. None of the trade unionists has been detained on trade union grounds alone. They have been detained on Mau Mau grounds, and in each case they have been given the chance of appearing before an advisory committee which has confirmed their detention.
I was asked to say something about wages. The Carpenter Committee, which presented the first part of its Report last February, recommended an immediate flat increase of wages for urban workers of 10s. a month, and also a revision of housing allowances. Both those things


have been passed as an interim measure by the Legislative Council and are now effective. There are certain proposals for the future which raise difficulties. There is a proposal for bringing the present bachelor wage up to a family wage two-and-a-half times the present bachelor minimum. It is a complicated question which is being studied carefully by the Government of Kenya. The Report further makes it clear that, despite low cash wages, the unskilled married worker, with his full rations, including posho, and housing, is better off in the country than in the towns. I can assure the Committee that the Kenya Government are watching all these matters contained in the Report very carefully and giving them full attention with a view to the future.
I was asked several questions about the education of women and about the employment of women as administrative officers. Women are employed in the education department in various spheres in administrative jobs and in other ways. They are also doing very good work in the camps and elsewhere and, I understand, in welfare work, including that of many voluntary societies. But I will put to the Government of Kenya the suggestion about the greater use of administrative officers in the camps.
There is no doubt whatever that the Government of Kenya are fully alive to the importance of the general education of women. In fact, this is revealed by the figures. In 1951 the number of secondary pupils enrolled among African women was 148. In 1952 it went up to 451, and in 1953 to 625. So that I think the Government of Kenya, as are Her Majesty's Government—and I speak as chairman of the Colonial Education Advisory Committee—are well aware of the need for increased education.

Mr. Hobson: The Kibsgais allow their women to go into homes to work. Is it possible to persuade the Kikuyu and other tribes to do the same and to find out the reason why the Kibsgais are prepared to do what the other tribes are not prepared to do?

Mr. Hopkinson: I know the great difficulty about breaking down these traditions among the Africans—one might almost call them fetishes—regarding

employment and education. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will consider the point he has raised.
I was asked about the release of some of the African leaders. I think that the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) made it clear that he was not pressing for the release of those who were convicted, and that it was only those who are detained to which he was referring. The Kenya Government do not accept the implication that all the African leaders have been imprisoned or detained. They consider that there are many outside who are capable of leading, and who are increasingly showing themselves capable of acting as leaders of the African people including the Kikuyus. Regarding those detained, in each case appeals against detention have been made or could be made to an advisory committee which, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, consists of a chairman who is a judge or an ex-judge and some senior administrative officer.

Mr. Brockway: Again may I make my point? Is it not the case that of the 17,000 detained, only a few more than 500 have gone to an advisory committee? How is it possible to say that this is a method by which the leaders of the Africans who are in detention can be judged?

Mr. Hopkinson: I thought the whole point was that we were talking of the leaders. We are well aware of who are regarded as leaders, and those people have had the opportunity of going before an advisory committee. There is no question about that.
I was asked about African elections both by the right hon. Member for Llanelly and by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson). I would say that the nomination system is finished. It is only a question of what sort of elections there will be in the future—direct or indirect, or through some form of electoral college. My right hon. Friend is considering this urgently in consultation with the Governor. It is a question of setting up a committee to examine the whole matter to see what is the best method of election for the Africans. But the nomination system is dead for ever.
Reference was made to the White Highlands. I was asked whether my


right hon. Friend will take the same line as was taken by Mr. Creech Jones with regard to European settlers. My right hon. Friend shares the views which Mr. Creech Jones expressed in 1946, when he said that he recognised the value of European settlement to Kenya; and when he said that it was with the assistance not only of the Africans but also of the European settler community that the great benefits which he hoped would accrue to the Africans could be brought about. I emphasise that there is nothing in the present situation, or the future prospects of Kenya, which should deter prospective emigrants from this country from going to Kenya.
The right hon. Member for Llanelly asked a question about surrender terms. I do not think it is necessary for me to go over again the events which led to the failure and breakdown of the last surrender negotiations. All I can say is that at that time, and temporarily, the Government very reluctantly abandoned the attempt to induce a mass surrender, but we are still ready to consider any approach for a mass surrender. The Government will respond to any realistic initiative from gang leaders who are able to influence large numbers of terrorists into surrendering. The original offer of August, 1953, for individual gangsters to surrender, remains open, and we should welcome any steps that may be taken in that direction.
Those hon. Members whose suggestions I have not been able to deal with may rest assured that what they said will be carefully considered in the Colonial Office. We shall make full use of their contributions to the debate. I am sure that the short debate which we have had will be of value, both in this country and in Kenya, by making quite clear what Her Majesty's Government are trying to do and what the Kenya Government are trying to do, as well as by showing the feelings of the House of Commons on the problem. We do not intend to leave any step untaken to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the terrorism of Mau Mau.
We want to proclaim from the House of Commons today to these terrorists that they have no hope whatever of success. We want them to understand that clearly. At the same time, and alongside of this, we pledge ourselves to build up a new Kenya in which all races including the

Kikuyu will have their full and proper part to play. In the forefront of our plan stands the new Constitution, with its multi-racial basis, which will always be associated with the name of my right hon. Friend.
Here, as in so many other parts of the Colonial Empire my right hon. Friend has shown that a combination of imagination and patience, on the one hand, with realism and firmness on the other, can achieve honourable and practical solutions even in the face of the greatest difficulties. In this case it is a settlement which, although it is only a first step, can, I feel convinced, given the good will of men of all races in Kenya, achieve the ambitious aims which we have set before ourselves. It has been said that we are now in a transition stage. I believe that we have passed the turning point and that we are slowly and painfully—and perhaps with many set-backs still to come—finding our way out of this murky wood.
The emergency is not yet ended, but who can say how long it may be before the Mau Mau adherents, losing confidence in themselves and hope of victory, may abandon their resistance? That will be the testing time for the people of Kenya, and above all for the European settlers, through whose genius and energy the fortunes of that country have been built up. The part that they are now playing in expanding the multi-racial system of government, and the imagination which they are showing, leaves me in no doubt as to what the answer will be to this challenge.
I feel sure that with the support of the people of this country, and the Members of this Committee, they will go forward and carry on the task which they themselves have undertaken, and which their parents undertook 50 years ago in Kenya, of fostering the progress, civilisation and Christianity of that country. Therefore, although the immediate future for Kenya may still seem to be dark and insecure, it is my hope and belief that, out of the welter of anguish and suffering through which it is passing, a comradeship and understanding between men of different races is being created, and that this will remain and grow. That is a prospect which must fill us all with hope and encouragement, especially those of us who know and love Kenya, and all of us who


are confident that from this present tragedy will emerge, and is now emerging, a Kenya which is greater, stronger and better than ever before.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £47,080,588, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sums necessary to defray the charges for the following services connected with Kenya for the year ending on 31st March, 1955, namely:—

Civil Estimate (and Supplementary Estimates), 1954–55, Army Estimates, 1954–55 and Air Estimates, 1954–55



£


Class II, Vote 8, Colonial Office
714,660


Class II, Vote 9, Colonial Services (including a Supplementary sum of £227,000)
26,475,928


Class II, Vote 11, Development and Welfare (Colonies, &amp;c.)
12,500,000


Army Estimates, Vote 3, War Office
3,200,000


Air Estimates, Vote 3, Air Ministry
4,190,000


Total
£47,080,588

Motion made, and Question proposed:
That a sum, not exceeding £7,763,558, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sums necessary to defray the charges for the following services connected with House of Commons Accommodation, &amp;c., for the year ending on 31st March, 1955, namely:—

Civil Estimates (and Supplementary Estimates), 1954–55



£


Class VII, Vote 2, Houses of Parliament Buildings (including a Supplementary sum of £34,000)
283,000


Class VII, Vote 1, Ministry of Works
4,676,960


Class I, Vote 4, Treasury and Subordinate Departments
2,044,132


Class I, Vote 2, House of Commons (including a Supplementary sum of £126,000)
759,466


Total
£7,763,558

Orders of the Day — HOUSE OF COMMONS ACCOMMODATION

7.5 p.m.

Mr. R. R. Stokes: I apologise for interrupting the debate on Kenya, which I know is a matter of vital importance and, perhaps, the keystone to the whole problem of Africa. I join with my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) in protesting that a full day was not given by the

Government for a debate on Kenya. If the truth be told, I should have liked to speak myself on that subject, but obviously that was not possible today. I am grateful to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen for not having taken more time, because that enables us to talk about the Reports which the Select Committee on House of Commons Accommodation have recently rendered. Equally, I think that the Government should have allowed more time for a debate on the Reports of the Select Committee.
Dull though the subject may be from the point of view of the public, it is vital for the efficient conduct of our affairs here. I do not know what sort of comments will be made about the attendance today, but I reflect that hon. Members are naturally an unselfish body of people and, knowing that they have left their affairs in the hands of trustworthy guardians, they are prepared to go about their duties rather than to sit here and listen to a stream of complaints and criticisms which the Select Committee in their Reports have had to make.
It is a domestic issue, and probably the public are not very much interested, but I am sure that, with the approval of the whole Committee, I can say that in all the recommendations we have made, whatever their cost, we are confident that if they are carried through they will greatly improve the efficiency of Members in the House, and that it will be money well spent.
The Committee made two Reports. Perhaps I should say that there were two Committees, because we worked in two Sessions, but starting last year and ending in the middle of May of this year we held 35 meetings, examined 34 witnesses and asked 2,500 questions, which is quite a formidable array as the minutes of evidence show.
I say at the outset that I have been pretty well all round the whole of this Palace and that the accommodation which we can provide here, and which should be provided and made comparable to that which prevails in the Dominion Parliaments, is impossible of achievement without extensive buildings and, of course, considerable expenditure. The Committee had only one purpose in mind when making its Reports, and that was how to make the best use of the existing accommodation in the interests of


the efficiency and comfort of Members and of the very considerable staff attendant thereon.
We are all confident that if our recommendations are carried out they will prove to be of benefit to everybody. Perhaps I might emphasise that both Reports were unanimous. In fact, I think we had only one Division during the whole time. That does not mean that we did not quarrel occasionally, though the Division was not on a matter of what I would consider prime importance.
The object of the debate is to give Members the opportunity to discuss the proposals, inevitably to hear some sort of statement from me who very unexpectedly found myself put into the Chair, and either to approve the Reports or endeavour to improve them, and in the process to persuade the Government to take immediate action where legislation may be required and to carry out minor alterations without delay. I hope that the Lord Privy Seal will be able to say that the major alterations which would cost quite a considerable sum of money should be seriously considered for implementation in the next financial year.
Might I also say at the outset that the statement made by the Minister of Works on 28th January on the first Report of the Committee, which was published last October, has been very helpful indeed to hon. Members. Perhaps I might commend the Minister for his promptness in action. I am sure that the Select Committee is gratified that he so promptly replied to its recommendations. Many of the minor proposals made in the first Report have been adopted; some are in force and others which involve considerable expenditure are due to be completed during the Summer Recess, when quite a change will come over what is referred to as the kitchen accommodation, about which I shall have something to say a little later.
In the second Report—it was on the first Report that the Minister made his statement—there are three main conclusions. First of all, the Report endorses what the first Report said about unified control. The first Report urged that it would be in the interests of everybody that there should be unified control of the Palace of Westminster instead of this curious tripartite, quadripartite or

goodness-knows-how-many-partite control which exists at present. We have the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Serjeant at Arms and the Minister of Works and Black Rod all fiddling about with no real co-ordination. That is not an extravagant statement. I have been Minister of Works, and the present Minister of Works is sitting opposite me, and I am sure that if he spoke he would endorse what I am saying. It is extraordinarily difficult to get things done, for reasons with which I will deal in a few moments. However, the main thing is that there should be unified control.
The second recommendation is the formation of a House of Commons Commission in place of the existing Commission, which stems from an Act of Parliament of 1812——

The Chairman: I imagine that would need legislation? Is that not so?

Mr. Stokes: I was assured, Sir Charles, that I was entitled to talk on the Reports about any matter whatsoever to which they relate, having regard to the fact that the Reports are up for consideration.

The Chairman: We are discussing the sum to be voted for House of Commons accommodation; we are not talking on the Reports.

Mr. Stokes: Then I am sunk.

Sir Herbert Williams: There is a recommendation which involves legislation, but effect could be given to the same idea in part by setting up a House Committee. The other thing might follow later on. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) talked about a House Committee, he would get out of his difficulty.

Mr. Stokes: I am much obliged to the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams). That was really the way we approached it. I prepared my notes on the assumption that I could discuss legislation. No legislation would be needed for the Committee which I suggest, although it might itself decide that legislation would be desirable. I take it, Sir Charles, that if I stick to that formula I shall not infringe your Ruling.
The third important consideration is an alteration in the accommodation on the Library level of the river front. That


especially concerns Mr. Speaker's Library, which was intended originally to be part of the House of Commons Library, about which I shall have more to say in a few moments.
To deal first with the unified control of the Palace, the October Report urged that some machinery should be instituted whereby unified control of the Palace could be exercised. We had evidence from Mr. Speaker and the Serjeant at Arms, and both of them supported the view. If hon. Members will refer to Question No. 928 on page 79 of the Report, they will see that Mr. Speaker favoured the idea but pointed out some difficulties in carrying it through. The reaction of the Serjeant at Arms was:
Of course, unified control is bound to be better.
That is precisely the view which he held before the Joint Select Committee in 1945.
The reason why I, with a little experience as Minister of Works, press for unified control is that nowhere, in my experience, are there more vested interests than there are in the Palace of Westminster. They all conflict with one another, and nobody really has the say. There is no better organisation than exist here at present for passing the buck. It does not matter what one recommends; somebody can always do one down, because there is no real top decision-making authority which can correlate and is strong enough to decide between the requirements of Members of this House and the requirement of another place. I also want to say something else about that a little later on.
The House of Commons Commission or Committee is, as I have indicated, only a first step. The Commissioners, as they now are, were first constituted in 1812. I wish to point out to the Committee that the Commission really deals only with staff salaries and the Fee Fund; it does not deal with anything else at all. The poor Palace of Westminster is under the Lord Great Chamberlain, who has absolute authority over both Houses when Parliament is not sitting. That is a funny state of affairs. When we rise at 4.30 p.m. tomorrow the Palace passes back to the Lord Great Chamberlain, and the Serjeant at Arms has no say in it at all until the House sits again.
That raises one of the difficulties in respect of which we wish to propose alterations. The House itself is delegated by the Lord Great Chamberlain to the Serjeant at Arms while Parliament sits. The Minister of Works has been the keeper of the old and new Palaces since 1883 and is responsible for the maintenance of Government buildings. He has a general warrant from the Lord Great Chamberlain yearly to carry out what repairs may be necessary to keep the fabric of the Palace in repair. Also, for some reason unknown to me, he allocates Ministerial and other rooms via the Serjeant at Arms. This may be great fun for the Minister of Works, but it is thoroughly unsatisfactory, because his writ does not run the whole time. I am sure that a change towards greater unification would be desirable. If the Committee which we suggest should be formed saw fit at some future date to recommend legislation, nobody would be more delighted than I should be; but I will not pursue that point.
I now come to the second point, which is the question of the Commissioners as they now are and what they might be. Historically, the Commissioners were appointed in 1812 to regulate the staff payments of salary in place of what were called "perquisites." I do not know whether any hon. Member knows what "perquisites" means; there may be a Great deal behind it. The Commissioners consist of Mr. Speaker, the Secretaries of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, the Attorney-General, and the Solicitor-General, provided that they are all Members of the House. The Master of the Rolls at present is not a Member of the House and so he is disqualified. They are:
Responsible for pay, pensions, terms of service of all officers and officials employed in the House of Commons.
They are also responsible for management of the Fee Fund.
The Select Committee felt that times have changed and they hope that the Committee which it is now recommended should be formed will consider making some alteration. We do not think that the control which now exists is wide enough. If I might make a suggestion to the proposed Committee, we should like the Commissioners to be replaced by a body of experienced Members and Ministers, as the Report suggests, who


would undertake the present functions of the Commission and deal with accommodation problems and the management of the House.
The Joint Select Committee of 1945 said that there should be a Committee of Members, to which all Members of the House could have access, to advise Mr. Speaker on the allocation of the accommodation under his control. The Joint Select Committee also recommended that it should form an ad hoc Joint Committee with the House of Lords Committee as occasion demanded.
I am in a certain difficulty because of the restriction which has been placed by you, Sir Charles, upon what I am trying to say. I do not object to that. I understand the position. Like the policeman who has just run me in for speeding, you have to do your job. However, we feel that the Commission or House Committee should give some guidance to Mr. Speaker on Estimates for the House of Commons; the allocation of accommodation; the Library and all its ramifications; the general services required by Members; and the general arrangements for kitchen and refreshment rooms, which are already carried out by Committees. In effect, the Library and Kitchen Committees would remain autonomous, except regarding expenditure. If hon. Members want to consider the composition of these Committees, it can be studied in the Report itself, though it would probably be out of order to stray into those realms. Such a Commission, when formed, could make a report to the House, embracing all the reports of the sub-committees. I think I shall have to leave it at that, because I do not wish to get out of bounds.
The third important point was the question of the use of Mr. Speaker's Library. I do not wish to say too much about that, except to thank Mr. Speaker for the kindly and patient way in which he received and accepted the representations made to him by me on behalf of the Select Committee from time to time. If hon. Members will study the Report, they will see on page 121 a plan, from the original plan of Sir Charles Barry, which clearly indicates that the room at present occupied as Mr. Speaker's Library was intended to be part of the Library of the House of Commons. I do not want to go into the historical facts of what has

happened, but it is perfectly true that that room has never been used by anybody except Mr. Speaker since the Palace was rebuilt.
The reason for the alteration is clearly stated in the Report, and I want to say to the Lord Privy Seal that, if he will accept, and if Mr. Speaker will also accept, the cheapest and easiest alteration which we propose, which will cost practically nothing, there is no reason why it should not be carried out between now and the time in October, whatever it may be, when we are to come back.
The next cheapest operation would be the Rialto across the corner, which would not cost very much. I do not think it is necessary, because the cheapest of all is the simplest, and it could be done without any great inconvenience. What I would emphasise is that the whole Committee was completely satisfied that none of the other proposals that have been put forward will offer such relief of the congestion and such improvement of the amenities for Members as this change, which they have unanimously recommended, subject to the conditions stated in the Report.
It has been stated by the Minister of Works, in regard to the Star Chamber Court, that the arcade has to be rebuilt anyway, at a cost of £20,000. In that case, a first floor could be added on top of the colonnade, which would give another 2,380 square feet, which would be useful, but let not the Minister think that this accommodation could in any way take the place of the change in the Library front. Anybody who has studied the habits of Members of the House knows that they all congregate towards the east—to the river side of the Palace. In general, I believe, they want to be together, but one of the points made in the discussions in the Select Committee was that we do not want to spoil the character of this place by providing rooms so distant from one another that Members never see one another at all. We consider that this proposal which we have made offers the maximum best use of the existing accommodation, beyond the inordinate amount of space which is occupied by another place, but that is another matter.
I want to say a word or two about the Kitchen Committee's alterations which have already been approved by the


Government. The proposals are contained in paragraphs 11 and 12 of the October Report, and there is no doubt that they would be of great benefit to Members. Perhaps I may draw attention to the fact that a plan showing the alterations to what is known as the Visitors' Downstairs Bar is now on exhibition in what used to be called the Old Map Room, and is there for all to see. I am sure that this would be an enormous advantage to Members, although, because none of us ever welcome personal change, some people will not like it.
I am quite certain that the alterations in the kitchen arrangements which have been accepted by the Kitchen Committee will lead to a better service, hotter meals and a considerable saving of about £3,000 a year. Another point not to be lost sight of is that much better accommodation for the staff will result in regard to changing and rest rooms which, in the past, have been absolutely deplorable. I am glad that the Minister is carrying out these changes, and that they will be completed by the time we come back in October. All this is included in the Supplementary Estimate of £34,000.
Now I come to the point about desks. A questionnaire was sent to all hon. Members inviting them to say whether they wanted to have pedestal desks. I found that quite a number of hon. Members did not know what a pedestal desk is, and I am bound to say that I did not know either. Apparently, it is a trade term for a desk where one's knees go through the middle and there are rows of drawers on either side. There were 295 replies from Members who said they would like to have one. What Ministers do not understand—and I hope the Lord Privy Seal will listen to this, because I have found people on my side of the Committee unsympathetic—is the fourth-form schoolboy conditions in which many Members of Parliament are expected to work. There is nowhere to leave things—books and papers—except a miserable locker like the one I had at school. I have never used mine; I have got the key, and I suppose it is still empty.
This accommodation is quite deplorable and inadequate, when we compare it with what Members of the Dominions Parliaments

have. It is quite disgraceful and astonishing that Members have put up with it for so long, but I hope that, with this very considerable number of people asking for desks, something will be done about it between now and October. There is another reason. There is plenty of room on the Upper Committee Corridor, and I quite agree with the argument about other rooms in Old Palace Yard and Abingdon Street. It may be that all the 295 hon. Members do not want this, but it is very unlikely that 93 would have said "Yes" to Abingdon Street in reply to the questionnaire if not agreeing with the idea of a scheme in the Upper Corridor which would improve the efficiency and comfort of all hon. Members.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: The right hon. Gentleman talks about a fourth-form schoolboy, but can there be anything more like a fourth-form schoolboy than a kneehole desk?

Mr. Stokes: I do not know, because I never had a kneehole desk when I was a fourth-form schoolboy. Perhaps I was not brought up with such high-class people as the noble Lord. I call it a desk; but they call it a pedestal desk. [Interruption.] It is no use talking to me about it. I do not invent trade terms. I am an engineer, not a furniture maker. People here talk about blue prints, but blue prints do not mean to an engineer a rough sketch or outline. A blue print is a copy of the final—not a sketch. It is the end, not the beginning. If hon. Members like them, they can put their blue prints in their pedestal desks.
I want now to say a word about ventilation, particularly in the Library. The ventilation in the Library is deplorable, and I hope something will be done about it. Also, it was often reiterated by members of the Committee, and in the cross-examination of witnesses, that there ought to be better supervision of the temperature in rooms.
If visitors in the Galleries were allowed to take part in our proceedings now is the moment when they ought to break into loud applause. The Select Committee recommended that there should be a silent annunciator put up in the Chamber, so that people in the public Galleries may know who is performing on the Floor of the House. [Interruption.]


"Performing" is not the right word. I should have said "speaking." One hon. Member has suggested that an annunciator might be useful on the Floor so that hon. Members might also know who is talking. I made this suggestion when I was Minister of Works and actually fitted a dummy behind the Speaker's Gallery. I thought it was a jolly good idea. Without giving the Lord President of the Council away, perhaps I might say that he did not like the idea very much.
I do not understand this shyness, although I am naturally timid. I do not understand the objection. Of course, the public know when well-known figures stand at the Box and speak, or when some Minister who has lost his job goes on to a back bench and speaks from there. The public are the people who send us here to represent them, and when they come to see what is going on, why should they not know who is speaking? More than a thousand people come here every day, and they ought to know who is speaking. I hope that the Lord Privy Seal can give us an assurance that before we come back in the autumn there will be a silent annunciator put up in the Gallery.
I shall not say much about the staff, or the whole question of Committee clerks, except that the Committee were unanimously of the opinion that the Clerk of the House should be given such authority and latitude as to enable him to be overstaffed with clerks rather than understaffed. Considering the amount of legislation that goes through today, it is intolerable that there should be a limitation on the number of clerks employed, and that the Clerk should be restricted and always be in the state of mind of arguing whether he can spare the expense and risk the displeasure of committees, or have rather more clerks than seem obviously necessary all the year round to meet the need. We were unanimously of the opinion that he should be able to meet the needs of the House. I hope that the point will be taken care of forthwith by the Government.
The Palace of Westminster is quite an enormous place. I do not think I have been into every room, but I have been round it a great deal more than anybody else. It is a fantastic fact that, leaving

out the public but including Members of Parliament, an average of 1,011 people attend the House of Commons as staff every day while the House is sitting, and that in the other place, including their Lordships—when they attend—there are only about 300. That means a proportion of roughly 3½ to 1 in favour of the Commons.
Another fact is that the House of Commons occupies about 128,000 square feet, while the other place has about 70,000 square feet. If we reduce these figures to fair proportions, they mean that the other place ought to shed 24,000 square feet as close as possible to the House of Commons. We should then have more room to carry on our work. I do not see much possibility of getting that change made until we get both Houses of Parliament under unified control, and the sooner that is done the better.
I would comment particularly on one feature of the other place. I cannot understand why, as the October Report indicates on page 14, the Lord High Chancellor was allowed to remove the whole of his Government Department from the Law Courts and into the House of Lords. The Palace is a congested slum area, but the Lord High Chancellor—[Interruption.] It is no use the Lord Privy Seal saying that it was done by a Labour Lord High Chancellor. I am not interested in that. The fact is that it happened, and there is so far no sign of the Government tipping him out. In 1946, the Lord High Chancellor had 23 rooms. Now he has 36 rooms. Why should he be allowed to move into a slum area? He ought to be moved out again as fast as possible. That was the general view of the Select Committee, and was supported by the evidence.
My next reference is to the rationalisation of feeding. I understand that the cabmen's shelter has been shut down. I regret that: it was not a recommendation of the Committee. There are no fewer than 35 different staff messes, if we add them all up, and 27 places where Members can get food and drink. As time goes on, surely there should be some rationalised scheme of feeding. The Ministry of Works has a great scheme for building a new restaurant across the road in Abingdon


Street, connected by an underground passage so that people will not have to go across the road. They can go underground. Something ought to be done about it here, because the present position is frightfully inefficient and takes up an enormous amount of space. I commend that matter to the attention of the Government.
I have finished, although I would like to have been able to say more had there been more time. I hope that hon. Members will feel that the Select Committee has not been tardy in carrying out its job, and that the recommendations which we have made are worthy of the Committee's support and of the Government's immediate attention.

7.37 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell: No doubt the Committee appreciates that the Select Committee carried on and brought up to date work which was done by Select Committees in the past. There was Joseph Hume's Select Committee in 1834, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) is in almost apostolic succession to him.
Conditions were very different in the House of Commons when Joseph Hume's Committee sat and dealt with conditions as it saw them in the social climate of its time. It remedied many extravagances and abuses in the House of Commons, and it had an even tougher job than did my right hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich and his Committee.
Looking at the office of Speaker in 1833, I note that prior to 1833, apart from his perquisites, he got something like £3,000 a year. When we were considering Members' expenses the other day, we thought that a daily £2 allowance was something novel. As a matter of fact, it is not, because Mr. Speaker used to get £5 every day he sat. What is more, in 1833 it was made into a salary of £6,000 a year. At every election of a Speaker, he was allowed 4,000 ounces of plate, or about £1,400 in lieu, and also £1,000 by way of outfit.
One of the things that the Hume Committee did—it is a testimony to its courage—was to reduce Mr. Speaker's salary by £1,000 a year and to buy the set of plate which we have at the present time and the outfit that is now part of the establishment of the House. The real

reason it did that was that Speakers used to sell back to the House for their own profit the plate that they were given at each time of election. That was something belonging to the social climate of 1833.
Change was very much in the air. We often speak about the great Reform Bill, but it is useful to remember that that Measure only gave the vote to 4 per cent. of the adult population. Of course, it is a fact that we had a Parliament in this country long before we had democracy. I remember the Prime Minister saying to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) that there was Parliamentary democracy long before the Labour Party was born. My right hon. Friend said that there was not; that there was a Parliament, but not democracy. He said to the Prime Minister, "Your people were here and mine were not." Any student of history will know that my right hon. Friend was not wrong on that occasion, if he has ever been wrong on any other.
Of course, it was after the widening of the franchise that the Joseph Hume Select Committee was set up. There are copies of the Report of that Committee in the Library, from the perusal of which one is able to see what manifold abuses it put right at that time. People in those days were born into the service of the House, and fees were tied up with Private Bill legislation.
It appears that the five Acts dealing with Officers of the House of Commons which came into force between 1812 and 1849 all went through "on the nod." There is not a word to be found about any debate on them at all. If we want to know anything about the history of the House at that time, we have to turn to the Report of the Select Committee of 1834, or to the earlier one.
Joseph Hume made the suggestion of appointing Commissioners of the House, and they were appointed from Secretaries of State extant at that time. That is the reason, of course, why the Master of the Rolls was a Member of Parliament He could not be one today.
When I first became interested in these things four or five years ago, I approached one or two of my colleagues and asked them whether they had ever met as Commissioners of the House. Many of the


people who were Commissioners did not even know that they were, because the whole idea had fallen into desuetude. I imagine that the way in which Mr. Speaker used to carry on was to consult the Chancellor of the Exchequer and one other right hon. Member, and that was that. I think that was proved by the evidence submitted to the Committee.
From 1830 onwards, Secretaries of State were not so busy that they could not reasonably manage the affairs of this House, but they met more regularly than they do now. In the course of time, this set-up became almost archaic. Indeed, if we take the trouble to study the matter, we find that many of the powers conferred on the Commissioners have been derogated to people almost five times removed from the original Commissioners.
As I say, the Commissioners very seldom meet. I do not think I am giving away any secret when I tell the Committee that they met on one occasion, not in the lifetime of this Government, to see whether the only lady member of the OFFICIAL REPORT staff should receive equal pay. I think that matter has now been put right. But Joseph Hume, having met the abuses of his time, the thing has fallen into decay.
Those who come into this House, particularly those concerned with great corporations and local government, know that this place is largely run by officials. People talk about Crichel Down, but that is a feather-bedding affair compared with what happens in this House. I put it to hon. Members, as a matter of self-respect, that the first thing that should happen in a democratic assembly is that the elected element should prevail. It does not prevail in the management of this House, and it should. The House of Lords has a Sessional Committee which does not recognise the right of the Lord Great Chamberlain or of any other court dignatory to push its Members around. That Sessional Committee has complete control over everything that happens in the House of Lords. Even the matter of whether a shorthand-typist holds the certificate of the Royal Society of Arts for a shorthand speed of 80 words a minute comes before that Committee. Anyone who examines the proceedings of the Sessional Committee knows that their Lordships have much more control

over their procedure than we have over ours in this House.
It is very difficult, even if one has sat on a Select Committee, to work out the line of demarcation between the Serjeant at Arms, the Clerk of the House, Mr. Speaker, and what happens when the House prorogues. I think it reasonable that this House should see that privileges are stopped, and that hon. Members should at least bring themselves into line with the best municipal practice. The first thing that any such administration does is to ensure that any appointment to office within the town hall is open to all through advertisement and is completely competitive. The elected element manages its affairs, and all officials are under the reasonable discipline of the elected element. These things do not prevail here.
If we are going to be up to date, we need a different set of machinery. We do not need to take the steps suggested by Joseph Hume, because today public taste, morality and the general standard of public life are higher than they were in his day, but we need some of his probity in order to face up to the difficulties of 1954. The sort of organisation we want is not something which will run this House from day to day, or which will approve of the application of everybody who applies for a job, but generally an organisation composed of a body of people which will lay down the general principles on which the staff shall work and which will fully recognise the right of collective bargaining and free association of its servants, which is something that is completely absent at the present time
I would mention in parentheses that in order to get over this difficult business of trade union representation, Her Majesty has empowered the Ministry of Labour to negotiate all such questions on her behalf. In this alone of the Royal Palaces no trade union recognition exists. That is a statement of fact, and some sort of body ought to consider this matter and get it properly organised.
The conditions under which people are promoted or engaged are matters over which Members of this House should have control. I say quite emphatically that no town hall or municipal administration would behave in the way that we do. It would become almost a matter


of public scandal if they managed their affairs in the way that we manage ours today. The Select Committee suggests the setting up of something like a general purposes committee which would manage the affairs of the House in these different directions.
This is a very uncomfortable place in which to work, and I think that every hon. Member knows that is so. It is not sensible that the little tubby hole, to which reference has been made today, should be the only allocation of space for Members. Broadly speaking, the amenities allocated to Members of this House are very much less than those of County Hall across the road.

Mr. Ede: Or of any other county hall.

Mr. Pannell: Or, as my right boa. Friend says, of any other county hall.
There is another important point. Some time ago we were discussing Members' salaries. That maybe a distasteful subject; none the less salaries and conditions go together. There are any number of hon. Gentlemen on both sides who just have bed and breakfast in London for four nights of the week, come here with their bags on Monday morning, and have to shift their stuff out at the end of the week. Surely, it is not unreasonable that those Members should be provided with pedestal desks and, if necessary, facilities for filing their documents and papers. I am fortunate in being provided with full secretarial assistance and in living reasonably near London, but anyone who has seen his colleagues' dilemma knows that they need something more than is provided for them. Those desks could be put in.
If it is a matter of amenities for some people on the staff, there is a good deal of rushing round, but apparently nothing matters here regarding the convenience of the Members. I know that the Lord Privy Seal doubts the wisdom of this proposal, but if 60 desks were provided he would be surprised at the response. When this matter was first raised in the Select Committee by the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price), I did not think much of it. I was later staggered by the number of hon. Members who approached me about it, and I am sure that the Chairman of the Committee

was equally surprised at the numbers who would like a desk in this place.
Now a word about the Lord Chancellor's Department. No other Department of State is housed in this building. His Department is like any other Ministry and it is something of a scandal that the whole of it, from the Lord Chancellor himself to the office boy, is housed here. Having regard to the accommodation available it is quite indefensible.
In this great Palace of Westminster, with its long history and great tradition, it is quite insulting that visitors should be left to the mercy of some of the guides inflicted upon them. We should put ourselves in a respectable position by forming a proper corps of guides who would not provide the bowdlerised history which one often hears now. As Member for Leeds, West I usually get parties coming here at the week-ends and on Saturdays I join the public procession. I start with 30 school children and often end with 150. One finds a guide stuck in front telling the sort of story that almost makes one scream. Would it not be possible on Saturdays to have a guide in the Robing Room, a guide in the Princes Chamber, another in the Royal Gallery and so on, who could tell the story of that place as the people passed through? There have been some very reprehensible practices by guides and the Select Committee was made aware of that. It was told of instances which took place on such solemn occasions as the Lying in State of a Monarch. We must put the guides under the control of the Palace itself.
To summarise the position, this House of Commons is a living organism reflecting the social climate of its time. Hume and his colleagues reflected the climate of 1833 onwards. We could not do anything in 1945, but we have now moved back to our own House and we set up the Select Committee. I think the Select Committee's Report reflects the social climate of our time and that this House should bring itself up to date and adopt that Report.

7.55 p.m.

Sir Herbert Williams: I shall not follow the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) into all his history, because much of it did not very directly concern the recommendations


made. I do not think that there are today any scandals in connection with appointments in this building. We went into that fairly exhaustively and I think that we were all satisfied that the methods of appointment were not open to serious criticism. Anybody who reads, not merely our Report but the various Minutes of Evidence and documents, will agree with me in that regard.
As a member of the Select Committee I am most grateful to the right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) the chairman, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale) who deputised for him for some three months while the right hon. Gentleman was selling blueprints abroad. Both of them worked us very hard, but, as a result of their efforts a valuable document has been produced—valuable, not merely because of the recommendations but on account of the great mass of evidence, which it is worth while to read both on historical grounds and for suggestions for the future.
We were unanimous, but there are various degrees of unanimity. We were very anxious about this because we felt that the major recommendations would be more likely to be accepted if the Committee was unanimous. However, I have not the same enthusiasm as the hon. Member for Leeds, West had for disturbing Mr. Speaker from his Library. That is Mr. Speaker's main workroom. Sometimes in the mornings one will see a substantial procession of officers of Government Departments going into his room—when examining Amendments for example—and there must be a suitable place for that work to be done with the necessary books of reference to hand.
With regard to the recommendation to build over the Star Court, that room will be 80 feet by 30 to 35 feet wide. That will provide an enormous amount of writing accommodation. I myself have an office five minutes from here and I am therefore not as dependent on the amenities provided in this building as are those who come to London for four days a week. Nevertheless, I realise what a burden they have to bear and what a difficult life they have to live. Though my constituency, my home and my office are nearby, I use the Library occasionally. I cannot recollect an occasion when I could not find a seat in the Library.
Again, I use the rooms underneath quite a lot in the afternoon. I have never found them all full. There are 20 of those small rooms. Some people suffer from claustrophobia and do not like going into them. We therefore took the doors off half of them, but I like to be in one which has a door. I like to be by myself and do not wish to do my work in public. There are others like me. Some hon. Members would like to use desks while standing in the passages. I should like to say, in fairness to my colleagues, that I was never convinced of the necessity to move Mr. Speaker from his Library, though others took a different view.

Mr. Stokes: The hon. Member will accept that the Committee unanimously reported:
Your Committee are confident that Members would greatly benefit from these alterations. They therefore adhere to the recommendations which were made in the report of the Select Committee on House of Commons Accommodation in the last session.

Sir H. Williams: I thought it was right that I should say here what I have said in the privacy of the Committee Room upstairs.
The proposal to build over the Star Court is a very valuable one and I hope that that will be considered. It will be possible to do it with great economy, since the damaged colonnade has got to be rebuilt and it merely means putting a new room on the top. That would be a most economical way of providing substantial additional accommodation in this building which, as everybody knows, is congested.
I am always annoyed when I read in the papers that Members of Parliament have their meals subsidised, when two-thirds of the meals consumed in this building are not consumed by hon. Members. The gentlemen of the Press, policemen, messengers, Office of Works staff eat here, and the public use the cafeteria, and I think there is a little loss incurred there.
As for the suggestion that appropriate accommodation might be obtained at the other end of the building, I do not see how it can be done. There is the Central Lobby, which is part of the House of Commons, and that is a natural division between the House of Commons and the rest of the building It would be difficult to work further on, in conflict


with two lots of Division bells. I do not want to use the Lord Chancellor's rooms. They are 300 yards from here or thereabouts. We must think of distances in this building.

Mr. Stokes: It is possible that the hon. Gentleman was not at the particular meeting when this matter was discussed in greater detail. It is not suggested that Members should have rooms in the other place, but some of the alterations suggested would make for easement on the river front at the Library level, and certainly if some of the rooms now occupied by the other place were moved further south, use could be made of the rooms now occupied by the staff of the House of Lords.

Sir H. Williams: I have been around this building a great deal. I used to explore this building in war-time. I did fire-watching and I found a great many rooms which I had never seen before. I understand that there is now a chance—and I hope the Lord Privy Seal can say something about it—of making some proper use of the Victoria Tower. The reconstruction of the stonework is now nearly completed. But of course it is a horrible place to climb up to. In the days of the "doodle-bugs" that was my place of observation. I often used to speculate who would win if a "doodle-bug" hit the Victoria Tower—but that is in passing.
There ought to be a lift in that place. Its condition during the war was filthy. There are lots of old Acts of Parliament and other documents accumulating dust all the time, and we really ought to have a clean-up in the Victoria Tower. It is in an awful condition; at least, it was last time I was in there, and, as I have said, it is quite a climb to get up there.
Although no reference is made to this matter in the Report, I hope that consideration will be given to putting the Victoria Tower to some use in order to relieve the Library, because every year, so we are told, 40 yards of additional accommodation are required to house the vast number of public documents which are issued every year to Members of Parliament. None of us reads all of them, but they are all read by some Member or other—we all have our special interests—and it is very difficult to get

at the documents, because they are spread all over the place. The Library spreads all over the corridors. Many of the old documents which are not often consulted might possibly, by agreement with the Members of the other place, be transferred to the Victoria Tower. That suggestion ought to be kept in mind.
Reference is made in the Report to the ventilation, and I do hope that somebody will see that this building is made decent. I sometimes attend meetings in a room upstairs which is so abominably hot that at the end of an hour I have to come away because I cannot endure it any longer.

Mr. Thomas Steele: It depends on the subject. Is the hon. Gentleman referring to the 1922 Committee?

Sir H. Williams: The 1922 Committee occupies the same room as that in which the other lot have their meetings. For some reason they have their meetings early in the morning, and we meet rather later in the day. One lot of people go and quarrel upstairs, and then another lot go and have their quarrel—and why should they not?

Mr. Percy Daines: But surely the hon. Baronet would agree that the 1922 Committee generate their own heat.

Sir H. Williams: Certainly. I hope hon. Members will look at this document carefully. We cannot discuss legislation, but we can set up a House committee. Whether later on that could become something rather different I do not know, but in the meantime, without any legislation at all, at the beginning of each Session we can set up a House committee consisting of experienced Members, who can be advised, to make sure that this place is run with greater comfort than today. It would be most useful if the ordinary Member who felt some grievance about something or other could have access to a House committee.
If we had a House committee, there is no reason why it should not from time to time confer with the corresponding body in the other place, because there is no reason why there should not be proper co-operation between the two Houses of Parliament in order that we may live in greater comfort and decency


than we do at the moment. I would ask hon. Members who have not yet studied this document to read it with the utmost care
I do not know what announcement is going to be made today by the Lord Privy Seal. Perhaps when we meet again in October the Government will be in a position to make some announcement on the recommendations in this document. Certainly many of these recommendations are worthy of careful consideration by every hon. Member.

8.8 p.m.

Miss Jennie Lee: The danger of a discussion of this kind is that it may seem to deal with rather trivial points, and unless it is carefully presented, some people might say, "Has the House of Commons nothing more serious to discuss than whether it is to have lockers or a change in its eating accommodation and so on?" For that reason, I want to say two things. We have to remember that in this House we are not entitled to be too diffident about it, because we are only trustees; this House was here a long time before we were, and it will be here a long time after we have gone. I think it will help us to overcome our diffidence if we regard our job, as my hon. Friend for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) said, as one of trying to bring the contemporary House of Commons in its living and working conditions into tune with the job it has got to do.
I hope there will not be many cases in which we have to bring matters of detail to the House for discussion. That is why it is important that we should have a House Committee. I am glad that this Report is unanimous. It may be that when some hon. Members read this Report they will wonder why we were so modest. We do not ask for a great deal. We agree that the first thing we must try to do is to put our affairs in better order. We are not anxious to broadcast all the facts about the rather foolish and obsolete practices and misuse of space. If only we can get our own House Committee started we can make proper use of the space in the Commons, and we may then be able to live on better terms with the Lords. I do not usually speak in favour of the House of Lords, but nobody could have been a member of this Committee without being impressed by the fact that the House of Lords is

run more sensibly than the House of Commons. I hope that it is not too high a target to aim at to run our affairs at least at the same level of efficiency as the House of Lords.
I should like to see the accommodation of the entire Palace of Westminster treated as one unit. If that were done there would be ample space to provide the staff and all Members with more civilised conditions than they now have. That, however, is outside the Report. We have to confine ourselves to the accommodation in the House of Commons.
I hope that hon. Members who are more fortunate in their individual circumstances—especially Ministers, who are a little selfish, because they have their private rooms—will remember that a higher percentage of Members of the House of Commons than ever before have to live and work here almost continuously during each Session. Many of us have been interested in this problem since 1949. It was not possible to make a start until we were back in our own Chamber. Again and again I have left the House when we have risen early and have seen elderly colleagues sitting in uncomfortable chairs at the end of the Tea Room. It is fantastic that we should have practically only two places in which to sit, and that those who have to live here most of the time have no privacy and very little comfort.
I do not believe that this is an efficient way to do our job. I hope that hon. Members will read the two Reports. We are trying to see that all officers and staff in the House can live in rather better conditions. That is one of the first things we ask for ourselves. There is practically no other room to which Members can go except what is now the Library. It is psychologically impossible to ask Members to go upstairs and downstairs. We desperately need one more large room in which to sit. I hope that we shall not have to argue on the Floor of the House whether Members are to have desks. I hope that while the House is in Recess during the summer the Ministers concerned will very quietly get going with this job. The present situation is impossible. I am sure that the public will be astonished to hear that Members of the House of Commons, while they can spend £25,000 in training a pilot, cannot so organise their own accommodation that there is at least one desk per Member.
I do not want to take up too much time, but I hope that these Reports will not now be set aside, but will be followed by action and legislation. I hope that in the course of time we shall get a House Committee, and that that Committee will quietly and graciously set about the business of bringing the accommodation and everything else connected with the House up to the standard which ought to exist in the year 1954.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Henry Brooke: I confess that I did not intend to take part in this debate, because I hoped that these two Reports, upon which we laboured for so long and about which we arrived at unanimity in the end, would have aroused the attention of sufficient of our colleagues for them to join in the debate. It has always seemed to me that Members of Select Committees should not push themselves forward when their Reports are being discussed and when other hon. Members may desire to express opinions. All I wish to do is to reinforce a great deal of what has been said by my colleagues, and to add one or two further points.
I feel profoundly that this Palace of Westminster should be made into a thoroughly efficient working place for the elected representatives of the people. Whether or not they like it, Members have to spend a great deal of their lives here while Parliament is sitting. I agree with the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) that the Members who need special consideration are those who, for financial or other chance reasons, have not the opportunity to make arrangements to do much of their work elsewhere.
I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) that the provision for Members is much better and more extensive over the water, at County Hall, than it is here. I have certainly not found that to be the case. The ordinary Member there has no pedestal desk; only one room is available for Members to read and write, and there is a library which inconveniently closes at 5 o'clock, although the Council may sit to midnight. I do not want to go far into these comparisons, because I hope that the House will agree—

Mr. Pannell: When I mentioned "county council" I was presuming that

London did not fall below at least one other county council, of which I was a member.

Mr. Brooke: I see. I would add, however, that the London County Council has been under the control of Labour Members for 20 years.
When I served on the Committee one of the matters which came to my attention was the grossly inadequate accommodation for many of the staff of this building. There again, I am afraid that I cannot agree with those of my colleagues on the Committee who say that a very high priority must be given to the convenience of Members—almost insinuating that the staff must be fitted into the rooms which Members do not need. If hon. Members look at some of the staff accommodation, both in this building and across the way in Abingdon Street, I think they will be surprised. When the Government consider these Reports, I hope that they will devote special thought to making sure that the staff of this building has the kind of accommodation and facilities which we should wish our own employees to have in whatever capacity we worked.

Mr. Daines: As a fellow Member of the Committee, I think the hon. Member will recall that certain grades on the staff are very adequately catered for, even to the extent of having their own private bedrooms. It is the lower grades, in terms of salary scales, which are so inadequately catered for.

Mr. Brooke: It is perfectly true that there are different grades of staff, and that in some cases people come off relatively well. In other cases, however, they are extremely badly off, and I am sure that if our colleagues knew just how badly off they were they would join with us in supporting the need for improvements.
It will be argued that a number of the recommendations made would cost too much to put into force. The Committee was not formed to obtain financial estimates for everything with which it dealt, and I am certain we all recognise that it would be impossible to do everything at once. But it strikes me that in the past there has been an unduly tight hold upon capital expenditure in this building, compared with the free way in which money has been spent on maintenance and on staffing.
The Committee drew attention to the fact that the Ministry of Works maintained a staff of 292 people in the Palace of Westminster. Frankly, none of us was fully satisfied that so many men were necessary. Yet hitherto a number of very desirable improvements of a capital nature have been held up for lack of money, of which the most obvious is the provision of galleries in three rooms of the Library, recommended as long ago as 1946. Indeed, I am inclined to think that if it had not been for the setting up of the Committee, the very obvious move of the main kitchen from one floor to another would not have been carried out so soon, though it should have been done years ago for the sake of efficiency.
On that point of expenditure, I very greatly hope that, whatever else is not done, high priority will be given to the construction of a new writing room if that Star Court arcade has got to be pulled down and rebuilt. That is the most economical move of all whereby the House can provide itself with additional accommodation, and I think all of us in the Committee would greatly welcome it.
There have been indications of differences of opinion in the House about Mr. Speaker's Library, as indeed there were certain differing shades of opinion in the Committee itself. I do not give the high priority to that recommendation which some of my colleagues do, but I join with the recommendation made in both of the Reports that the whole matter deserves investigation and that there should be thorough inquiry into it. We certainly do not wish to inconvenience Mr. Speaker in any way. At the same time we want the highest degree of working efficiency made possible for hon. Members.
In all these directions I submit that the Committee has been correct in saying that the House as an organisation should be able to exert greater influence over the arrangements in the building than has hitherto been possible, leaving aside for one moment the question of the exact means whereby that is to be done. The hon. Member for Leeds, West discussed the staff aspect, and a great deal of important work was done by the Committee on that. I am happy to say that, although some scandalous events were suggested as having taken place, in fact the Committee's inquiries did not throw up any scandals, certainly not current scandals.

What we have to do is not to call for a sort of cleansing of the Augean stables, because there are no Augean stables—there is no dirt lying about—but rather to make sure that we have a good working system for staff matters, giving general satisfaction for the benefit of all.
It must have come home to all of us on this Committee, whether we joined it in the attitude of mind of the hon. Member for Leeds, West with a great historical interest and a desire to bring about certain fundamental changes, or as I did simply because I felt this was an important House of Commons matter on which I had no strong preconceptions, that there are a great many matters in the Palace of Westminster which had not been looked at by the House of Commons or any Committee of the House of Commons for a considerable time. That is the aspect to which I attach the most importance. I am quite sure we need some new machinery whereby Members of the House, whether junior or senior, may have opportunity of getting their suggestions or problems relating to this building examined from time to time by a regularly established body. Might I give an instance of this, the curious smell on the Interviewing Floor which is referred to in the Committee's Report? I raised that matter with the Ministry of Works a considerable time before the Committee was appointed. I was told that I was the only Member who had complained about it, and there was not very much wrong. Now that it has been taken up by a Committee of the House, all kinds of interesting experiments have been made and the smell has been traced to the timber of the flooring.
In other directions too we should be able to exert more influence. I am sure the vast majority of Members would like some kind of annunciator in the public gallery for the benefit of visitors to this Chamber, so that our constituents and friends when they come here might have some opportunity of discovering what is going on, even at times when the actual proceedings may be almost incomprehensible to hon. Members themselves. That illustrates the kind of direction in which I feel there should be a channel whereby Members might join together and make representations, without party difference, so that improvements can be brought about.
On all these grounds, I regard as far the most important recommendation of the Committee the establishment of some kind of new body, whether a House Committee, or a Commission such as would require legislation, because we want to bring into the conduct of affairs of this House and the control of the building that flexibility which has been referred to by previous speakers. We want to make sure that nothing is so rigid that it cannot be altered; but that no alterations will be made except after careful consideration by responsible Members.

8.27 p.m.

Mr. Percy Daines: After listening to the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams), I was very much reminded of that famous statement by George Orwell, that under Communism all Communists are equal but that some are more equal than others. certainly thought that we had a unanimous Report from the Select Committee, but it looks as if some of the members are more unanimous than others.
I agree absolutely with the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) about rooms. Looking back, I think there have been a lot of mistakes made when the House was rebuilt. One example of that comes to my mind, and that is the telephone facilities which it was decided to put downstairs. There we have got a most elaborate set-up for telephones but nearly all of us refuse to go there. We are rather stubborn in our habits, and so we insist on crowding down the stairs by the cloakroom Lobby to telephone and there is often congestion there.
That goes back to the point that we are creatures of habit and want our accommodation where we want it and not where a handful of people want to place it for us. We want the bulk of our accommodation as near to this Chamber as we can possibly get it. May I address the Minister of Works, because I believe he will be the chief engineer in this matter. During the 1945–50 period we established a number of writing rooms by St. Stephen's porch. They were excellent rooms, but hardly anybody used them. We would not go there. We wanted to be near the Chamber, even at the cost of great discomfort.

The Minister of Works (Sir David Eccles): I should have thought that the Upper Committee Floor was just as difficult to get to as St. Stephen's.

Mr. Daines: It depends largely upon the purpose for which one goes there. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman need worry. When Hungary were playing football the other day there were many more people there than there were at other meetings. It all depends on what is there, but, seriously, I doubt whether many hon. Members would use accommodation there if a lift was not provided. We must obtain for the use of Members all the accommodation we can as close as possible to the Chamber and shift people out of the rooms near the Chamber to rooms further away where they can do their jobs just as efficiently. I say quite bluntly that the interests of hon. Members should be paramount.
I do not want to be critical of what happened during the war, but when I saw at that time magnificent accommodation for certain members of the staff and contrasted that with the accommodation for Members, I thought that it was a pity that there was not then in existence a committee like the one whose Report we are now discussing. Unless we recognise the simple fact that we want the major accommodation near the Chamber, for members we shall fail in our job.
I concede quite willingly that one cannot do this job simply by setting up a Select Committee. As a result of the work I did before the Select Committee was set up and as a member of that Committee, I am convinced that the job of rearranging the accommodation will take about three to five years. When one shifts one part of the accommodation one upsets another part. We must learn by experience to shift this and that bit round and obtain the maximum advantage.
I agree absolutely with what has been said about having one authority concerned with the running of this building. I have not wallowed in the adventures of the respected Mr. Hume, but the simple fact is that the Palace of Westminster is a great historical institution and it has hangovers and spare appendages from the past. Unless one looks at the whole matter occasionally with the clear light


that has been thrown on it this time, one cannot realise how much we are out of tune with events. Things have happened and we have got used to them. It is like the corn and the shoe. Suddenly, when one changes the shoe one realises how much the corn has hurt.
I do not disagree with what the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke) has said about scandals. A very mild trace of nepotism shows at times through the evidence placed before the Committee, but I do not make any great point about that. All that I say is that anybody who is qualified to serve—and I include in that context not only technical ability but integrity and character—should have an equal chance with everybody else. That is reasonable. I am absolutely against the suggestion that a Committee of the House of Commons should make actual appointments, but we as Members should know what goes on. Therefore, I place very great importance on one of the final recommendations of the Committee, that once a year a report on what has happened should be presented to the House.
While I appreciate some of the great debates that the party in Opposition have staged on Supply Days, I am not convinced that either side of the House is wise to look upon the Estimates as something of a political cockshy. We would sometimes be far better employed in actually discussing the Estimate before us. One of the Estimates which has always been taken on the nod is that dealing with the House of Commons and its work.
I should like to say a few words about the Library, and I see that the Chairman of the Library Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson), is in his place. I believe that there is enough in the evidence that was placed before the Select Committee to justify what I want to say. I say it with all due respect to my hon. Friend. I am not criticising, because I recognise that the Library is a hangover. Historically it started with a combination of a couple of Victorian gentlemen's private libraries. That fact permeates its character still.
Whatever I have to say is with no desire to hurt or wound anyone. I say it because I feel that some changes could

be made to give us far better service. Lawyer friends tell me—this cuts right across any question of party—that we have a very excellent law library. These is an excellent service where hon. Members can get what they want. In the Parliamentary section I believe that is also true. If they want any references they have an excellent service, but let us look at the more general things we need as hon. Members. I remember watching my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition clamber on a set of steps on top of five or six flights—he is more nimble than I am—to look at one or two books. Really that is not good enough. Suppose one wants to study a particular subject, it is not sufficient to have to go to a Library attendant and ask him to get a book when it may be that one wants to look at half a dozen books to see if that is the sort of information required.
The Treasury and the Ministry of Works have played their part in the question of whether we should have a gallery round the Library. Whilst I make all due allowance for preserving the aesthetic appearance of the Library, I think there is a case for a gallery so that there may be reasonably open access to books. The Reference Library is a postwar innovation. I want to say a number of very direct things about what is there and research generally. If one pinches a bit out of one chap's paper it is plagiarism, but if it is taken out of half a dozen chaps' productions it is research. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield will not feel at all hurt, but a lot of what is called research work in the Library is not research at all. It is not sufficient when an hon. Member wants to know something about a particular economic subject or on some question of foreign policy that he should be given just a bibliography of documents to read. That is not research.
I make a present to hon. Members opposite of this. They had a wonderful research department two years after they got turfed into Opposition. I used to admire the way in which they came into the Chamber armed with a first-class digest of facts. That is real research. Unfortunately, my party has not reached that standard of efficiency.

Mr. George Chetwynd: We have not the money.

Mr. Daines: There is nothing surprising about it; it is self-evident in the Chamber. In modern politics one cannot be really effective in this highly specialised age unless one has a highly competent research organisation behind one. The point I make most emphatically is that I do not believe the House necessarily wants political research from a party standpoint. Even if there were a really efficient research organisation behind the Opposition, it would be far better for the House and the country to have an efficient research organisation in the House of Commons. That certainly does not exist today.
The sort of place I want to see is a room as big as the middle section of the Library in which there would be six or eight desks with research officers, say two on foreign policy, one on finance, one on economics other than finance, and so on, where hon. Members could go to discuss their problems. They would not be presented with a bibliography of books to read or a big pile of books on the subject—but a digest of information that would be objective. It would be a service comparable to that supplied by the party machines, which I know is not necessarily objective because the views of political parties are necessarily subjective and slanted; that is the nature of politics. But I wish to see the same sort of facilities available to hon. Members as are available to parties today. I believe that that can be done.
What passes for research in this House consists of hon. Members going to consult some previous debate so that they can find that the right hon. Member for So-and-so said so-and-so in such and such a year whereas today he is saying the exact opposite. That is very often a basic element of speeches, and I have been appalled at it. It is pure poppycock. In this rapidly moving world of today one cannot maintain consistency of opinion when the whole of the facts have altered. I have always deprecated that particular type of Parliamentary debate which is largely made up of quotations of what somebody else said in different circumstances; but that type of debate still goes on.
I wish to make an emphatic plea for a really efficient research department as a section of our Library, and if hon. Members turn to the appendix on page 155 of the Select Committee's Report

they will find that, in February this year, the total number of inquiries from hon. Members was 39. I believe that was one of the highest figures. In a House in which, if one excludes Ministers, there are 500 Members operating in a private capacity, the average number of inquiries to the Reference Library would, on that basis, be about eight a week. That is fantastic.
I plead most emphatically for the adoption of the section of our proposals which deal with the establishment of a proper Library Committee—I say this with no disrespect to the present Library Committee—a committee really endowed with powers which would enable it to take this department and really make something of it. I am satisfied that such a committee would have the fullest co-operation of the staff in the matter. There is the question of the qualifications of the staff, into which I do not propose to go, but of which I am very conscious.
I wonder whether, in beginning this task, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), and my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) and Cannock (Miss Lee), and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) realised just what we were up against. What we were up against was not the history of the Chamber in terms of what we revealed, although I think we revealed quite a lot of interesting facts, but the status quo, the idea, "It has worked, it has ticked over," and therefore there is really nothing much wrong. When I heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich open the debate, I looked at the very benevolent face of the Lord Privy Seal and thought how wonderfully he personified the status quo. Of course he does, be is the very essence of the status quo, and I have not the slightest doubt that when he replies he will demonstrate that up to the hilt.
I frankly admit that, as the hon. Member for Hampstead said, there is not much cause for alarm about the matters that are dealt with in the Report. There is, however, a really big constructive job to be done. We do not want to move out of this building, of course we do not. It was, however, built for something quite different from the purpose which it serves today. It was built in the time when Parliament was looked upon as a club


for leisured people who really believed in the status quo; it was not the busy workshop that it is today. But we all love this place and we love most of its traditions, and we wish to preserve as many of them as we can.
Let us be quite honest. Most of us would be miserable if this was not the part of our lives that it really is. So I would plead with the Government, and particularly with the Lord Privy Seal, not to stone-wall this proposal, but to look at it fairly and objectively. Give us a chance, by the new form of organisation which we propose, to give new life to this dear old lady, the Mother of Parliaments, whom all of us love.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm McCorquodale: We have had an interesting debate and we have heard some forthright speeches. I am one of those, even after a long time in this House, who never quite know how Select Committees are selected. Sometimes we see the most docile of Members on Select Committees and at other times we see the most forthright of Members put upon other Committees. But I suggest to the House that they look at the names of those who were members of this Select Committee. I do not imagine that for many years past a body of Members more accustomed to speaking their minds without fear or favour were ever put on one committee—and of course I am not excepting our admirable Chairman, the right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes).
I would say, therefore, that it is all the more remarkable—and I should like to say creditable as well—that after considering the mass of evidence, and after a great number of meetings, we are able to present a unanimous Report to Parliament on a subject which is of great interest, as indeed it must be of great interest, to all hon. Members. Naturally, in such a diverse Committee, there were many shades of differing opinion; and in order to get a general consensus of opinion, many Members had to forgo, or at least to shade down, their personal preferences.
I would urge everyone not to read more into the Report than is written in it. I have, for example, heard that certain people are frightened that Members of the House of Commons, corporately or individually, are in future to interview

and select members of the staff. There is no truth whatever in that suggestion. There is no suggestion of it in the Report. Indeed, one opinion which we came to most strongly was that it would be absolutely wrong to put Members in any sort of position where they could be subjected to pressure, individually or collectively, in the selection of staff for this House. Therefore, I would urge everyone connected with the House to realise that that was certainly no intention of ours.
On the instructions of our Chairman our admirable Clerk—I should like to make special reference to the services that he rendered to us—did word in paragraph 4 of our Report what we all felt was our object. If I may. I will read the paragraph, because it is quite short:
The public duties which a Member is required to discharge have of recent years constantly increased. This trend does not appear yet to be at an end. Moreover, with longer and more constant attendance in the House, a greater part of a Member's duties have to be performed there. In their recommendations, your Committee have been influenced solely by what they consider desirable to facilitate the carrying out of these public duties by Members.
That was the sole object of everyone.
In passing, may I say that I hope that Members interested will read some of the historical material which has been printed at the back of the Report. I think that in future the Report will be of great use and interest to those who may be historians of the House. For instance, there is a most interesting and excellently worded account of the origin of the Library, as the hon. Member opposite has mentioned. There are also a great number of guides to Members if they do not know the rules and regulations surrounding the issue of tickets for taking people round the House and all the one hundred and one bits of instruction which they get otherwise piecemeal and which so often get lost or overlooked until the last frantic moment arrives when one has 50 people arriving to come round the House and one knows that one is allowed only 36.
The more we inquired the more impressed we were with the fact that in this archaic building, and looking after its unique and unpredictable assembly, the system works at all. It is only because of the enormous ingenuity of the average people of this country as exemplified by the admirable staff we have that


the place works as well as it does. I should like, for my own part, and I believe that my colleagues will join with me, to pay tribute to the fact that we in the House of Commons are served under these great difficulties by a very devoted, loyal and able staff from all sections—custodians, clerks, office clerks and others.
We found in our investigations and the cross-questioning that we did a readiness to give us information, with nobody wishing to hold back anything, and a courtesy and charm which made our heavy work a pleasant one. I wish to pay that tribute to those who have helped us in our investigations.
Other hon. Members have spoken about the accommodation of Members, which is, of course, of vital interest. The idea of the new writing room came to us from the Ministry of Works, and I should like to pay tribute to them for it. This new large room which is proposed is very close to the Chamber. In parenthesis, I would say it is absolutely right to say that we are creatures of habit and that we will not go far from the Chamber. We hate going up or down stairs, except to the television room. This room, so close to the Chamber and on the same level, would make a most admirable writing room, and I hope that it will be considered as such.
If it can be made into a writing room with pedestal desks or writing tables, or whatever conjunction there may be of the two, it might be possible to relieve the strain caused by turning our Library into a writing room. The trouble with the Library is that it is not a Library but a writing room with a lot of books. If anybody wants to go in there to read the books, he finds that there is almost nowhere to sit except at the writing tables and that other people want to come in and to push him out because they want to write letters there. If we could have the great bulk of the writing accommodation in this vast new room which is proposed, then the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson), who is chairman of the Library Committee, would be more pleased than anybody else, because then he could give us some more adequate chairs in which to sit to read books at our leisure and to our content.
I stand by everything that we have said in the Report about the Speaker's Library, but I should not place quite so much emphasis on it as did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich. He knows that we are in the hands of Mr. Speaker in that matter. While on the subject of Libraries, I would say that I was glad that the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Dames) spoke at length on the subject of research. I am not happy with the present position. I believe that most of it just happened rather than that most of it was thought out.
I do not believe that anybody quite knows or that anybody has sat down and considered whether we ought to have a research department in the Library which could prepare our speeches for us, or at least help us to prepare our own speeches. I do not believe that anybody has considered whether we should go as far as the hon. Gentleman suggested and have a library which would do away with a great deal of work which the two parties do for their own Members at present, or whether we should have a research department here at all. I am not expressing any views on one thing or another. All I am saying is that the matter should be thought out and a policy agreed in this House, and then the policy should be carried out. That is not happening at present. I am sorry for the Librarian, and especially for the Chairman of the Library Committee, who is doing the best he can without any clear or specific instructions as to what the House wants in that respect. That is the comment made in paragraph 42 of the Report.
While the right hon. Member for Ipswich was unavoidably absent abroad, it was my duty to preside as his deputy over the Committee while it considered chiefly the methods of recruitment and the staffing of the House. I believe that we did a service by inquiring minutely and carefully into this matter and also by setting out plainly and clearly the principles by which all people on the staff of the House of Commons are recruited. In future no Member or anybody outside the House can say that he does not know how so-and-so got a job at the House of Commons, because it is all laid down in the Report. That is very valuable. The members of the Select Committee who urged us to go


minutely into the matter did a good service.
I hope that the results of our inquiry and our Reports—I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke) in this respect—will clear away many misconceptions which might otherwise be held as to how people get their posts in this House. We have a few detailed suggestions to make which we hope may still further improve the information about the jobs, the field from which people are recruited and the like, but these in no way alter the main methods for the selection of the staff. For myself—I am speaking only for myself here—I was very much impressed by the care taken by the heads of the different Departments in this matter.
I should like for a moment to refer to the position of the Committee Clerks. Sir Frederic Metcalfe informed us when he came before us that the establishment is for 35 Committee Clerks and at that moment there were only 33. We had a valuable memorandum by the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) on this subject. We were impressed by the fact that the staffing of the Committee Office is not an easy matter. We in this House work by fits and starts, at some times of the year under the highest pressure and at other times, so far as Select Committees and the like are concerned, we have comparatively little to do; but it is essential that we should have sufficient Committee Clerks to meet the highest peak which the House wishes.
It would be the height of false economy not to be able to carry out the wishes of the Government, or the Members of the House of Commons acting together, because we did not have enough Committee Clerks. Therefore, we say in our Report that they should be recruited up to the maximum necessary adequately to meet the staffing needs of the House at peak periods, and we say that quite conscious of the fact that there will be comparatively long periods of time when those Clerks cannot be fully employed.
May I also refer in passing to the suggestion that we made that the Estimates Committees should be allowed, under permission from Mr. Speaker, to seek outside help from accountants and others in the elucidation of some of their problems, and not be entirely dependent upon the Treasury for their advice on all financial matters?
I should now like to refer in detail to one or two other small points which have not yet been mentioned, but which I think are important. On page 65 of the Report, the position of the Serjeant at Arms is gone into in some detail. The Serjeant at Arms was originally described as
the Sergeant ensign of Honour with which the King has been pleased to grace the Parliament.
and he is, of course, the direct servant of Her Majesty, but there was an interesting question asked of Mr. Disraeli—I think it was in the 1870s—about the Serjeant at Arms as to whether the House of Commons could offer any suggestion or advice to the Crown about the appointment of the Serjeant at Arms. Mr. Disraeli answered:
Sir, the appointment of the Serjeant at Arms is in the gift and entirely in the gift of Her Majesty the Queen. There is no person, whatever his position in this House, who has any influence whatever in that appointment.
Mr. Disraeli went on to say that he was quite sure that Her Majesty's advisers would take heed of any suggestions that might come from this House to that effect. If I might, without usurping the Royal Prerogative, I should like to suggest that Mr. Speaker be informally consulted on any occasion when a new Serjeant at Arms is to be appointed.
To come to another point altogether, I was very glad that the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell), who enlivened and envigorated our proceedings a great deal and brought a lot of common sense into some of our arguments—although I did not always agree with him—referred to the matter of showing parties of visitors round the House. I do not think the present situation is at all satisfactory. It is inconvenient to hon. Members, and quite undignified for the Mother of Parliaments.
We go to considerable expense and care in order to provide custodians, attendants and others for those members of the public who are fortunate enough to be sitting and listening to the debate, but other members of the public, who have not had the opportunity of coming inside, are herded round this House, and unless Members of Parliament take them round themselves, might well have to pay for the guide who is conducting them. It would be much more dignified if some suggestions


were worked out such as we have thrown out in this Report, in which we suggest that a corps of part-time guides should be recruited, preferably from custodians and ex-employees of this House, who appreciate the tradition of the House, and that they should be made available to show parties round, either on behalf of Members of Parliament or independently.
In general, our object was to make this House, under the limitations from which we suffer on account of it being too small and having been built over 100 years ago, as workable and useful as possible to Members and staff alike, though naturally the consideration of Members must be of first importance. We have made certain recommendations for bringing the control of House of Commons affairs closer to Members themselves, and especially in bringing the control of the Estimates of the House under our corporate responsibility.
I envisage a Sessional Committee as being an ever-increasing factor in the corporate life of this House. There are so many times when we are arguing, and when we fight and quarrel across the Floor of the House, that it is valuable also to have a body of senior Members from both sides always working together for the corporate advancement of the life of the House of Commons. I suggest that the criterion of who should be selected to serve on that Committee should not necessarily be party prowess; the choice should fundamentally be of good House of Commons men and women. The selection to serve would come to be regarded as a very high privilege and responsibility.
The time is coming, if it has not now arrived, when the whole question of how this House works—our debates, our Divisions, our methods of procedure—will have to be looked at corporately and critically, in the same way as we have been trying to look at the accommodation and the staffing of the House. When that is done, we shall have no need to fear that the House of Commons will not be able to face whatever problems the Welfare State and the position of this country may ask it to tackle in the future. It will do so with as much honour and as much respect as it has for so many hundreds of years.

9.7 p.m.

Mr. George Benson: I should not have risen had not the Library been mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Daines) hoped that my feelings would not be hurt by what he said, but nobody could have been a member of the Library Committee for the last eight years if he had had any feelings left to be hurt.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend suggest that there should be a real and effective research department. Let me remind him that for eight years we have had two overworked members of the staff and no capital, and I am therefore not dissatisfied with the progress we have made with our research department. Even to get an extra typist we have had to fight the Treasury like tigers. My hon. Friend suggested that we wanted a very large research department; where is it to come from?

Mr. Stokes: The House of Lords.

Mr. Benson: It is suggested that the Library should give up its reference section. My answer is: Give us the rooms and the staff and we will produce you a decent, reasonable reference and research section. The right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale) was entirely wrong in thinking that the research department, trivial though it may be, has not been thought out. All questions such as what we shall do, whether we shall prepare Members' speeches for them, how far we shall go in research for an individual Member, are matters under constant consideration and revision.

Mr. McCorquodale: I do not quarrel with what the hon. Gentleman says, but I do not believe that those are questions for the Library Committee to decide. They are too big for the Library Committee, and it is not fair to ask the Library Committee to handle them. The job of the Library Committee is to carry out the instructions of the House.

Mr. Benson: At the present moment the Library Committee has to wrestle alone with those problems. The key to everything in this Palace is more floor space. Suggestions about pushing people around cause almost as much trouble as they alleviate, because we cannot get a quart into a pint pot. The suggestion that we should build over Star Chamber Court and provide a writing room is only


playing with the matter. We must have a good deal more than that. I remember that suggestion being put to me at our party meeting three years ago. We need at least two floors; it is no good having only one. The Writing Room would certainly relieve the Library, and it would enable us to provide more easy chairs. But something more than that is needed. We want more accommodation so that Members can relax, and I do not want them to relax and snore in the Library. I have sufficient complaints of that already.

Mr. Stokes: There should be a snoring room.

Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: What about the Front Bench?

Mr. Benson: I am not responsible for that.
There is no reason why we should not have two floors between the Chamber and the Tea Room. If we are going to increase our accommodation, let us do it on a proper scale and not have to take about half a dozen bites at the cherry at intervals of years. It is very easy to talk about what we ought to do, but it has been a very hard fight to get what we have got. One of our major difficulties is the fact that the Library, which has been one of the expanding activities of this House, has been utterly and completely cramped for room. We have had to fight for every inch of space in which to put a clerk. Give us the room and the staff, and I am sure that the Library Committee will be able to give the House the service to which it is entitled.

9.13 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): We have had a very interesting discussion, but I must say that I have been disappointed—I am not referring to the speeches—because I had hoped that we would hear the views of hon. Members who were not on the Select Committee. I am not surprised that the Chairman of the Library Committee spoke in the debate because so much has been said about the Library. But, as the Report purported to be unanimous—although I gather that there were some slight shades of difference, which did not go to the extent of disagreement—I rather expected that members of the Select Committee would support its recommendations

and would amplify what is in the Report.
Speaking now not as a Member of the Government, but as the Leader of the House, I was hoping to get opinions from other hon. Members in the debate, because quite frankly, as far as I am concerned, it would have been just as useful if the Committee had come to me as a deputation and thrashed out the matter in my room, or in any other room. The debate is on record as a confirmation of what was put before the House in the actual Report.
The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Daines) begged me not to stand here as the personification of the status quo. In fact, he felt that that was what I was.

Mr. Daines: I still do.

Mr. Crookshank: I would put it the other way round and say that I am certainly not a red revolutionary, and, remembering the hon. Member's speech the other day I think that we have a good deal in common. But, of course, it is true that this House is constantly changing, not only its membership, but the needs of Members, There are the requirements of Members in connection with meeting their constituents, and so on.
As one of those who have been here for a long time—for 10 years I was on the back benches, so that I know something about what hon. Members feel from that angle—I agree with many speakers today that it is our job to see how we can adapt things. I think that the hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) put it better than anyone else. We ourselves are trustees for those who come afterwards, and we have gradually to fit into the circumstances of the times, without being either the personification of the status quo or the red revolutionary. I think that she would agree with it; I hope so, anyway.
This has proved a most interesting Report. I agree with my right hon. Friend that some of the information in the appendices makes fascinating reading. I do not know whether anyone else has gone to the trouble, as I have, of reading it through—including every word of the evidence. I must say that I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was a wonderful Chairman. He certainly allowed more latitude than would some


other chairmen, and certainly took a vigorous part in the discussion of the evidence with the witness himself. For everyone who sat upon it, it must have been a very enjoyable Committee, even though it was somewhat unusual. I do not know whether if what is described as a House committee is set up, its activities are to be on those lines. If so, not only will it be a privilege and a honour, as my right hon. Friend suggested, to belong to it, but I should think that it will be great fun.

Mr. Pannell: I might point out that it is proposed that Mr. Speaker should be the chairman of the proposed body to be set up, so I have no doubt that its proceedings would be conducted with a due degree of decorum. In regard to the other point, it was because of the difficulty of examining the witnesses that the Committee decided that the examination in chief should always be conducted by the Chairman in the first instance.

Mr. Crookshank: Yes, but of course that is a very odd procedure. As for the suggestion that Mr. Speaker should take the chair, I think the proposal was that there should also be a vice-chairman who—if I may say so without any disrespect to Mr. Speaker—would do most of the work.
As I see it, one of the complications about the whole problem is that the Palace of Westminster contains the two Houses of Parliament. If we were in one building and the other place in another, half the argument that goes on would not go on. Half the argument is very much the Naboth's vineyard type of argument—that the other place has all this room, and what is it used for, and the number of square feet it has, and so on. It is sometimes forgotten that, from the accommodation point of view, quite a number of the square feet are of no practical use to anyone. When one is adding square feet one includes such places as the Royal Gallery and the Robing Room. We are not always comparing like with like. If the other place had been in a building half-way along the Embankment or across the river, a good deal of the argument about control and the space available for Members just would not arise but there they are—and here we are.
The problem which was put to the Select Committee and put by the Select Committee to us, and about which we have to think so as to see what can be done, is the problem of how to get more accommodation. That is one aspect. A second way of putting it is how better we can use the accommodation that we have. Those two are by no means the same problems but they do get rather confused in this issue. As one hon. Member said, some people think that we have just to move everyone round, push out the occupants of three rooms here and find them three rooms elsewhere—but in the end not improve the situation.

Mr. Pannell: Like the Boundary Commission.

Mr. Crookshank: Another answer is to see where there is any other accommodation. The chief recommendation, or at least the one which has been most spoken of, was somehow or other to try to see whether Mr. Speaker's Library could be made available. I must say that I think that if, as the hon. Lady said, we are trustees, so is Mr. Speaker a trustee. He has got to be the trustee for his successors as well, and while the right hon. Gentleman pointed out that in the original proposal at one stage it had been suggested that the room which is now the Speaker's Library would be part of the House of Commons, that particular proposal was abandoned before any development took place.
We all recognise that the Speaker of this House—the greatest House of Commons, the old Mother of Parliaments, and all the rest of the descriptions which can be given to it—requires suitable accommodation not only by the nature of his office—that counts for a great deal—but also by the nature of his work. I have looked through all the alternatives, and I cannot see anything comparable to his own present Library in which he should do the work in the representative capacity that he has. I am really putting my own views here. I was looking at the other suggestions as to where we can find more room. The taking over of his Library, as I understand, does not make any more room. It is merely a shifting round.
The Report, if I may say so, is not at all clear about the purpose for which it is suggested the Library should be taken over. Possibly no decision was taken;


I do not know. I do not want to be too long, but perhaps I may read a sentence from the First Report:
If it is true that that change could be made with propriety"—
that is, the taking over—
it would release a room that would undoubtedly be of the utmost value to Members, adjoining their Library and also near the Chamber. Either it could be used by Members for reading and writing, or alternatively it would facilitate a rearrangement of the Members' Library and enable one or more of the rooms on the Terrace, at present used for Library purposes. to be converted to a reading room where refreshments could also be served if so desired.
I merely want to make this point to get it clear on the record. I took the second part of that quotation from the Report to refer to rooms on the Terrace—that is to say, on the Terrace level. But the right hon. Gentleman was good enough, when I raised this point, to tell me that that was not what the Report meant. That is why I want to put it on the record, because it is by way of being an emendation. When it says
one or more of the rooms on the Terrace
it means overlooking the Terrace. It means one or more rooms of the existing Library.

Mr. Benson: The reference room.

Mr. Crookshank: Yes. The suggestion is that the Speaker's Library should be taken for extending the Library, or else, by some rearrangement, whether practical or not, to put in a new refreshment room. That was a suggestion which certainly does not leap to the eye, and I am glad the right hon. Gentleman told me that that is what it meant.

Mr. Stokes: May I make it clear? If the right hon. Gentleman will look at page xiv of the First Report, he will find in paragraph 7 that it is clearly stated "on the River Front." This was an amendment.

Mr. Crookshank: Yes. I was merely quoting the original Report, and the words there are "rooms on the Terrace." The Library has rooms on the Terrace, and therefore anybody reading it would have thought that it referred to rooms on the Terrace and not to rooms on another floor overlooking the Terrace.
The question is whether there is any place where we can get more accommodation. A great deal has been said this evening about the proposal to provide more rooms over the Star Court. I must say that I personally am very attracted by that suggestion, because that would provide new space and would not involve merely shifting around in existing space. I know that that proposal will be considered. It might be possible to have a very handsome set of rooms there. Whether they would be used predominantly for writing or for sitting and snoring, time alone would show.
There is another place which has come to my notice since the evidence contained in these Reports was taken, namely, the Victoria Tower. There are improved chances that both Houses may be able to use it for storage purposes. It has got to the stage of very practical discussion, and now that the scaffolding has gone and the new floors are being arranged, it may well be that, with the installation of lighting and of a lift, which it is now more or less agreed should be put in, it will be possible to make available quite a lot of storage space. So there are two new important factors for actually adding accommodation rather than changing it round.
Various other points were raised, and I shall make it my duty to see that everything which has been mentioned in this debate will be considered in the right quarters. I am sorry that hon. Members who were not on the Select Committee did not take part in the debate. I suppose it is asking too much of them to read the OFFICIAL REPORT of this short debate, and, if they have any comments to make, either to inform me, as Leader of the House, or the "usual channels"—who, I am sure, would be pleased to help in matters of this kind.
The question whether the Library should become a real research library and write speeches impartially for both sides of the House is perhaps going rather far in describing what the hon. Member who proposed it had in mind.
The establishment of some sort of House committee is a suggestion which I certainly hope will be considered, although I agree with my right hon.


Friend that its membership would probably cause considerable anxiety, because many hon. Members might want to serve on it, and there must obviously be a limit to its size.
What has been said about desks will be noted, but I am not sure that the prospect of desks in two or three of the rooms on the Upper Committee Floor would be quite as attractive as it sounds. While the desks might be useful, the necessity to climb up and down, especially when the Division bell rang, would not seem to provide the highest comfort for everybody concerned.

Mr. Stokes: Many people are up there now.

Mr. Crookshank: I did not particularly relish the idea of having annunciators in the Public Gallery so that those who came to the House could know who was performing. That is not a phrase which I like—nor is it what I am now doing. I very much doubt whether anyone does not now know who is speaking, because when a Member rises the Chair calls his name, and when people first enter they are told who is speaking. It must also be remembered that when the House is in Committee the names of speakers are not shown. It may happen that during the whole day all that one learns from the annunciator is that the Committee is dealing with a certain Clause, page, and line.
The idea of knowing who is performing reminds me of the proposal, after the Chamber had been burned down, that there should be constructed underneath a large room with television installed, where people could see and hear who was speaking, and also that the Chamber itself should be insulated, with glass walls all round, so that visitors could pass by and see who was speaking—

It being Half-past Nine o'Clock, The CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to Standing Order No. 16 (Business of Supply) to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the Vote under consideration.

Question put, and agreed to.

The CHAIRMAN then proceeded forthwith to put severally the Questions:

That the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the several Classes of the Civil Estimates, including a Revised Estimate and Supplementary Estimates, and the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the Estimates for the Revenue Departments and the Ministry of Defence Estimate, and in the Navy, the Army, and the Air Estimates, be granted for the Services defined in those Classes and Estimates.

Orders of the Day — CIVIL ESTIMATES AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES. 1954–55

Orders of the Day — CLASS 1

That a sum, not exceeding £10,365,176, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March. 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class I of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
House of Lords
79,919


3.
Registration of Electors
260,000


5.
Privy Council Office
18,875


6.
Privy Seal Office
4,690


7.
Charity Commission
58,760


8.
Civil Service Commission
248,820


9.
Exchequer and Audit Department
288,735


10.
Friendly Societies Registry
48,300


11.
Government Actuary
9,481


12.
Government Chemist
176,440


13.
Government Hospitality
40,000


14.
The Mint
90


15.
National Debt Office
3,055


16.
National Savings Committee
691,200


17.
Public Record Office
68,439


18.
Public Works Loan Commission
90


19.
Royal Commissions. &amp;c.
138,000


20.
Secret Service
3,300,000


21.
Silver
3,012,000


22.
Tithe Redemption Commission
90


23.
Flood and Tempest Distress Relief
250,000


24.
Miscellaneous Expenses
77,484


24A.
Repayments to the Civil Contingencies Fund
87,422



Scotland:


25.
Scottish Home Department
1,480,744


26.
Scottish Record Office
22,542


£10,365,176

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS 11

That a sum, not exceding £29,829,015, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for


Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class II of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
Foreign Service
10,087,290


2.
Foreign Office Grants and Services
14,255,800


3.
British Council
1,104,900


4.
United Nations
450,000


5.
Commonwealth Relations Office
1,278,370


6.
Commonwealth Services
1,254,782


7.
Oversea Settlement
134,300


10.
Overseas Food Corporation
9,010


12.
Development and Welfare (Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. and South African High Commission Territories)
341,300


13.
Imperial War Graves Commission
913,263




£29,829,015

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS III

That a sum, not exceeding £61,174,808, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class III of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
Home Office
3,509,710


2.
Home Office (Civil Defence Services)
11,256,375


3.
Police, England and Wales
23,673,310


4.
Prisons, England and Wales
5,134,971


5.
Child Care. England and Wales
6,541,900


6.
Fire Services. England and Wales
3,321,935


7.
Carlisle State Management District
90


8.
Supreme Court of Judicature, &amp;c.
90


9.
County Courts
244,200


10.
Legal Aid Fund
752,800


11.
Land Registry
90


12.
Public Trustee
90


13.
Law Charges
312,761


14.
Miscellaneous Legal Expenses
20,410



 Scotland:



15.
Scottish Home Department (Civil Defence Services)
1,074,594


16.
Police
3,520,684


17.
Prisons
429,222


18.
Approved Schools
174,800


19.
Fire Services
428,932


20.
State Management Districts
90


21.
Scottish Land Court
10,471


22.
Law Charges and Courts of Law
143,179


23.
Department of the Registers of Scotland
90



Ireland:



24.
Supreme Court of Judicature, &amp;c., Northern Ireland
35,374


25.
Irish Land Purchase Services
588,640




£61,174,808

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS IV

That a sum, not exceeding £38,948,212, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year end on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class IV of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


2.
British Museum
245,771


3.
British Museum (Natural History)
206,421


4.
Imperial War Museum
26,126


5.
London Museum
13,520


6.
National Gallery
33,771


6A.
Tate Gallery
23,512


7.
National Maritime Museum
29,528


8.
National Portrait Gallery
16,152


9.
Wallace Collection
21,468


10.
Grants for Science and the Arts
660,823


12.
Broadcasting (including a Supplementary sum of £3,600,000)
17,065,000



Scotland:



13.
Public Education (including a Supplementary sum of £6,885)
20,555,463


14.
National Galleries
18,308


14A.
National Museum of Antiquities (including a Supplementary sum of £8,000)
15,669


15.
National Library
16,680




£38,948,212

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS V

That a sum, not exceeding £414,358,720, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, far Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class V of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
Ministry of Housing and Local Government (including a Supplementary sum of £29,990)
6,994,200


2
Housing, England and Wales
55,794,450


3.
Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues, England and Wales
45,100,000


4.
Ministry of Health
2,283,280


5.
National Health Service, England and Wales
250,045,685


6.
Medical Research Council
1,147,109


7.
Registrar General's Office
265,064


8.
Central Land Board
308,000


9.
War Damage Commission
679,000



Scotland:



10.
Department of Health
2,535,500


11.
National Health Service
33,417,800


12.
Housing
9,608,500


13.
Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues
6,140,000


14.
Registrar General's Office
40,132




£414,358,720

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS VI

That a sum, not exceeding £188,990,110, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VI of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
Board of Trade (including a Supplementary sum of £120,000
3,722,450


2.
Services in Development Areas
3,210,050


3.
Financial Assistance in Development Areas
1,012,510


4.
Export Credits
90


5.
Export Credits (Special Guarantees)
274,000


6.
Board of Trade (Strategic Reserves)
40,000


7.
Ministry of Labour and National Service
12,960,000


8.
Ministry of Materials
493,000


9.
Ministry of Materials (Trading Services and Assistance to Industry)
432,010


10.
Ministry of Materials (Strategic Reserves)
19,591,000


11.
Ministry of Supply
132,000,000


12.
Ministry of Supply (Purchasing (Repayment) Services)
9,500,000


13.
Royal Ordnance Factories
5,700,000


14.
Ministry of Supply (Strategic Reserves)
55,000




£188,990,110

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS VII

That a sum, not exceeding £40,720,866, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VII of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


3.
Public Buildings, United Kingdom
18,400,000


4.
Public Buildings Overseas
1,329,000


5.
Royal Palaces
336,800


6.
Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens
548,000


7.
Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments
456,450


8.
Miscellaneous Works Services
2,165,250


9.
Rates on Government Property
9,097,000


10.
Stationery and Printing
7,478,366


11.
Central Office of Information
880,000


12.
Peterhead Harbour
30,000




£40,720,866

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS VIII

That a sum, not exceeding £243,444,973, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VIII of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
7,115,934


2.
Farming Grants and Subsidies
26,098,640


3.
Services to Agriculture
7,014,810


4.
Fishery Grants and Services
2,032,200


5.
Surveys of Great Britain, etc.
1,798,410


6.
Office of Commissioners of Crown Lands
57,060


7.
Agricultural Research Council and Nature Conservancy
951,500


8.
Development Fund
760,000


9.
Forestry Commission
4,773,000


10.
Ministry of Food (Revised sum)
178,583,902


11.
Ministry of Food (Strategic Reserves)
6,034,000



Scotland:


12.
Department of Agriculture
6,222,717


13.
Fisheries (Scotland) and Herring Industry
2,002,800




£243,444,973

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS IX

That a sum, not exceeding £90,428,420, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class IX of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation
4,793,000


2.
Roads, &amp;c.
26,669,500


3.
Transport (Shipping and Special Services)
2,771,000


4.
Civil Aviation
5,592,000


5.
Ministry of Fuel and Power
2,535,700


6.
Ministry of Fuel and Power (Special Services)
10,215,010


7.
Atomic Energy
33,675,000


8.
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
4,177,210




£90,428,420

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CLASS X

That a sum, not exceeding £269,683,500. be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March. 1955, for Expenditure


in respect of the Service included in Class X of the Civil Estimates, viz.:




£


1.
Superannuation and Retired Allowances
6,347,500


2.
Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance
2,790,000


3.
War Pensions, &amp;c.
52,048,000


4.
National Insurance and Family Allowances
120,839,000


5.
National Assistance Board
86,936,000


6.
Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions, &amp;c.
723,000




£269,683,500

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1954–55

That a sum, not exceeding £189,229,600, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in the Estimates for Revenue Departments, viz.:




£


1.
Customs and Excise
8,487,600


2.
Inland Revenue
22,502,000


3.
Post Office (including a Supplementary sum of £100,000)
158,240,000




£189,229,600

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — MINISTRY OF DEFENCE ESTIMATE, 1954–55

That a sum, not exceeding £16,154,500, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Defence; expenses in connection with the International Defence Organisations, including a grant in aid; and a grant in aid of certain expenses incurred in the United Kingdom by the Government of the United States of America.

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — NAVY ESTIMATES, 1954–55

That a sum, not exceeding £207,407,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Navy Services, viz.:




£


3.
Medical Establishments and Services
1,437,000


4.
Civilians employed on Fleet Services
7,738,000


5.
Educational Services
1,000,000


7.
Royal Naval Reserves
1,826,000


8.
Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, &amp;c.:




Section I.—Personnel
35,128,000



Section II.—Matériel
64,870,000



Section III.—Contract Work
77,862,000

£


11.
Miscellaneous Effective Services
10,333,100


12.
Admiralty Office
7,190,000


14.
Merchant Shipbuilding and Repair
23,800




£207,407,900

Question put and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — ARMY ESTIMATES, 1954–55

That a sum, not exceeding £303,300,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Army Services, viz.:




£


4.
Civilians
62,740,000


6.
Supplies, &amp;c.
53,040,000


7.
Stores
184,000,000


9.
Miscellaneous Effective Services
3,520,000




£303,300,000

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — AIR ESTIMATES, 1954–55

That a sum, not exceeding £141,810,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for Expenditure in respect of the Air Services, viz.:




£


4.
Civilians at Outstations
28,570,000


5.
Movements
12,300,000


6.
Supplies
95,840,000


10.
Non-Effective Services
5,100,000




£141,810,000

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported Tomorrow: Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Resolved,
That towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, the sum of £2,479,769,524 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow: Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — RAW COTTON COMMISSION (DISSOLUTION)

9.38 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Heathcoat Amory): I beg to move.
That the Draft Raw Cotton Commission (Dissolution) Order, 1954, a copy of which was laid before this House on 146th June, be approved.
The object of the Order is to provide for the winding up and dissolution of the Raw Cotton Commission. Section 4 (1) of the Cotton Act, 1954, empowered the Board of Trade and the Minister of Materials jointly to take this action if at any time they were satisfied that it was in the public interest to do so. On 4th November last my noble Friend the Minister of Materials intimated in another place that it was the aim of the Government that the Raw Cotton Commission should cease active trading at the end of August.
During our discussions on the Cotton Bill this intention was confirmed on several occasions by Ministers. We said that nearer the time we would look at the matter and consider in the light of the circumstances obtaining whether any postponement was desirable, but in fact nothing has happened since that time to give any reason, in our opinion, for revision of the date.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman has quite fairly quoted what he said on a number of occasions on the Committee stage of the Bill, but on several occasions in Committee it was also said by Government spokesmen when we moved various Amendments that it would be appropriate to discuss those points when we came to the Dissolution Order. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why, therefore, the Government are bringing this Order before us so late at night when we have no real opportunity of debating those very important points which we wanted to debate in Committee and which were left for debate on the Motion to approve this Order?

Mr. Amory: If the right hon. Member listens he will notice that I shall refer to that aspect of the problem.
I was saying that in fact nothing has happened since that time to make us think that this date should be postponed. We

believe there is general agreement that, the policy decision having been taken, it would be sensible now to proceed forthwith, as planned, to wind up the Corn-mission. During the intervening period things have gone smoothly. On 18th May the Liverpool Futures Market re-opened, and since that time operations on that market have been proceeding quietly, steadily and satisfactorily. Prices have moved within fairly fine margins, and it seems that merchants and spinners are settling down without difficulty to the new conditions. Cover is being transferred steadily from the Raw Cotton Commission, to the benefit of public funds.
Certain fears were expressed by hon. Members opposite during debates on the Bill. I should like to refer to them and, while I do so, if the right hon. Member will weigh up the answers I am giving now, he will see that a further prolonged discussion is not really called for. I want to be fair here, and I will run through the half dozen fears which were expressed in the debates.
First, fear was expressed about the dangers that would accompany a substantial recession in the United States. I do not want to go into that, but I think there will be general agreement that those dangers seem rather less acute today than at that time. Then, anxiety was expressed at the possible imposition of United States export subsidies on raw cotton. I think those fears have been allayed by the announcement of the United States authorities that there is no intention of applying those subsidies during the 1954–55 season.
Then, I remember, concern was expressed that the removal of restrictions on the import of dollar cotton might lead to dollar expenditure beyond what we could afford. After 1st September it may well be that there will be some additional dollar expenditure, but it is still impossible to say how much that will be. It does depend on the relative prices of the various types of cotton. I can only say that to date we have no reason to change the view we expressed at the time of our debate that the extra demand for dollars arising from this is not likely to be excessive or beyond our resources. We also feel extra encouragement from the fact that our resources are stronger today than they were at that time. Let us remember, too, that against any extra call for dollars


there is the definite advantage that the industry will have freedom to buy from the most advantageous sources.
Anxiety, was expressed about stocks. Would sufficient stocks be held in the United Kingdom, particularly spot stocks? What about the position of the smaller spinner? Would finance be available? In a moment I shall give one or two figures on stocks. Meanwhile, I think it is the general opinion in Lancashire that in this respect, too, things seem to be working out all right. No inadequacies under those headings have come to light so far, although I admit that on this matter we cannot be quite certain until the Raw Cotton Commission's facilities are no longer there. So far the evidence is that the changeover is pro-ceding without inconvenience to those concerned.
I also remember that some hon. Gentlemen thought that the United States would be likely to exercise too great an influence on the Liverpool cotton market. I can only say that so far there are no signs of a new flow of American capital there, although Americans are transacting business on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange. I think that hon. Members will agree that that is healthy and profitable. On the other hand, the amount of investment of United Kingdom capital going in to finance the market seems to be satisfactory.
Another fear expressed by some hon. Gentlemen, in spite of assurances given, was that the type of cover that was to be provided would turn out to be inadequate and inferior, partly because of being limited at present to the American contract. I would say that there is now general agreement that it was wise to start with the American contract only, but the Liverpool Cotton Association, in co-operation with spinners, are, I understand, studying the possibility of a long staple futures contract. Also, as I think has already been said, they will consider the extension of the present contract to other types of non-United States cottons at the end of a year.
I remember fears being expressed about a prospective shortage of long staple cotton. I agree that the prospects at that time looked a little uncertain but that shortage has not, in fact, materialised, and there seems to be sufficient of long staple cotton about.
Lastly, some hon. Members expressed fears about the future for colonial cotton, particularly the long-term contracts. I would remind the House that long-term contracts were not universal in the case of these colonial types; and also that long-term contracts are not the only means of assisting the development of colonial cotton, an objective with which we all have the greatest sympathy. Let us remember that the object of the Raw Cotton Commission. in so far as it went in for long-term contracts, was not primarily the development of the Colonies in this way but to secure supplies for the cotton industry in this country. During the latter stages it found it advantageous, in fact, to have long-term contracts only in the case of three Colonies—Nigeria, Aden and Nyasaland.
Once again I would remind hon. Gentlemen of the assurances that have been given. I confirm again that these outstanding long-term contracts will be implemented in full if it is the wish of the Colonies concerned that they should be. Discussions on this point are proceeding with the Colonies concerned. It has been decided that the sensible way would be for the liquidator to carry out these contracts, subject as far as necessary to direction from the Minister. We did say that it was for consideration how it should be done—whether it should be done by the Minister directly—but we think it better for the liquidator to carry out these contracts as agent for the Minister.
I shall refer only very generally to the stock position. My noble Friend has already given some adequate figures in another place. I wish to say only that there seems to be no sign at present of stocks running down dangerously in the United Kingdom. At the end of May the stocks totalled 910,000 bales. It is estimated that at the end of August the stocks in the United Kingdom are likely to be about 880,000 bales.

Mr. William Keenan: What is that in tonnage?

Mr. Amory: About 190,000 tons.

Mr. F. Blackburn: The right hon. Gentleman will agree that that is about 90,000 tons less than when this Government came in?

Mr. Amory: It is about 90,000 bales less than a year ago. But I do not think


that the hon. Gentleman will say that there is any fixed level of stocks which is the right one. It must vary according to the regularity of supplies.

Mr. Blackburn: I agree with that, but this is the lowest level which stocks have been since the war.

Mr. Amory: I have had no opinions expressed to me from any quarter in recent months that the present level of stocks is unhealthy or dangerous.

Mr. H Wilson: Since the contacts of the right hon. Gentleman with Lancashire seem to be very limited, may I ask if he can tell the House of a single peace-time year since the American Civil War when stocks of raw cotton in this country have been as low as they are according to the figures which he has given?

Mr. Amory: No, but what I am not prepared to say is that, if that is so, it is necessarily a dangerous situation. There is every sign that there is in the country the level of stocks which the industry requires under present circumstances.
I should like to give one or two more figures. It is estimated that at the end of August the Raw Cotton Commission will have about 230,000 bales unsold and it will also have sold forward about a similar figure. I shall not quote any more figures of stocks at the moment, because I think that if I do we shall get all tangled up—

Mr. Wilson: We on this side of the House will not.

Mr. Amory: I wish to say a word about compensation. The scheme approved by Ministers, as provided for in Section 3 of the Act, is at present in force, and it is proposed to give a direction to the liquidator in the same terms as the direction given to the Commission. I wish to repeat what I said during our previous debates, that there will be no distinction made between service in the employment of the Commission and service during the winding-up period in the employment of the liquidator.
Hon. Gentlemen will remember that this compensation applies to staff whose services were dispensed with as a result of the change of Government policy. It

was decided by the Commission, and confirmed by Ministers, that those who left of their own accord could not be eligible. Inevitably, perhaps, there are some borderline cases involving an element of bad luck. That seems almost unavoidable whenever one draws a line. But I should like to say—I have made absolutely sure of this—that the Commission has carefully considered each individual case. As the running down of its business proceeded, and the Commission could foresee accurately what its staff requirements were likely to be, it has done its very best to give as long notice as possible to the staff concerned. I think I ought briefly to refer to the Articles in the Order.

Mr. Wilson: I hesitate to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman for a third time, as he has been so courteous. But since, if I may say so, he showed great humanity about the question of compensation during the Committee stage, may I press him once again on this subject? I do so in the middle of his speech in order to save the time of the House, because I do not want to have to endeavour to catch Mr. Speaker's eye in order to make a separate speech. Surely the right hon. Gentleman is wrong in saying that the Commission could adequately foresee its requirements for staff during this period of contraction. There have been some very serious anomalies, apart from the hard luck cases which he has mentioned.
There were people who had no idea whether they would be redundant, and in order to avoid unemployment they sought alternative work. Yet, within a few days, their colleagues in a particular department—the right hon. Gentleman has had the evidence—were given notice, and have received compensation. I understand that has been brought to the attention of the Minister several times and that the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Materials considered this matter with the Commission.
Would not the right hon. Gentleman ask the liquidator, who is also acting chairman of the Commission, to show the same degree of humanity to these hard luck cases that was shown during the Committee stage of the Bill when we produced other examples of hardship and anomaly? Will he not leave this in the hands of the Commission, give its members a free hand and ask them to look at the matter knowing that the whole


House will be behind any decision of the liquidator if he is able to give a square deal to these people who, through no fault of their own but through the inability of the Commission to forecast its requirements have been severely prejudiced?

Mr. Amory: The right hon. Gentleman agrees that as time went on it became more feasible for the Commission to foresee exactly when it could dispose of various members of the staff. The problem became easier to deal with as time went on. I am satisfied that the Commission has considered this on a number of occasions. It has examined individual cases. It has considered the matter with great sympathy and care, and I must conclude that once the principle has been decided, it must be right, to leave the administration of it to the Commission. I am satisfied that the difficult borderline cases have been considered thoroughly. I believe that that is the right way rather than that the Minister should intervene on a matter of administration once the principle has been decided.

Mr. Wilson: Is that issue finally closed?

Mr. Amory: The Minister has taken what action he thinks appropriate. There is great promise that the Commission—and I am sure that the liquidator would do the same thing—will continue to consider each case.
I believe that it is right to say, now that the Commission has been able to look forward for the rest of the running down period, it has been able to make pretty definite plans how quickly the staff can be run down and who can be made redundant.
I do not think that I will waste the time of the House by going in detail through the Articles of the Order. Each Article has a heading which is clear.
I should like to repeat what my noble Friend said in another place on Article 2. It is intended to appoint as liquidator Mr. H. Jackson who, since the retirement of Sir Ralph Lacey, has been chairman of the Commission. We consider that he will be a very fit person for this function and that it will be a convenient and sensible arrangement which will provide administrative continuity.
After 31st August there will be no functions for the independent and part

time members of the Commission to carry out. I should like to take the opportunity to thank them very much indeed for the way in which they have helped us and performed their duties.
Article 4 deals with the powers of the liquidator. I hope that no hon. or right hon. Gentleman will ask questions about that because, as usual, we give the liquidator powers to do almost everything in the world. I am surprised to see that he is not authorised to make canals or to build railways, which is what we usually do in this kind of legal document.
I should like to say a few words about the disposal of stocks. I remember during our discussions on the Bill that hon. Members said that they would have liked to see it laid down in greater detail how the stocks should be disposed of. In the light of what they said we considered the matter very carefully. We took the advice of the Cotton Import Advisory Panel which concluded, as we did, that even in the Order, it would be unwise to lay down in any greater detail than is laid down in Article 5 (b) how this should be done.
However, hon. Members will notice that the arrangements have to be approved by the Minister after consultation with the Treasury and have to be arrangements best calculated to serve the public interest in all respects, due regard being had to the price obtaining for comparable cotton in the open market. We believe, and the Panel agrees, that it is best to leave it at that, and that is the way in which the Commission will ensure that the stock is disposed of in the best interests of the industry and public funds.

Mr. Keenan: I estimate that at present the Commission possesses about two-thirds of the quantity of cotton which it held about 12 months ago. Is it the intention to put 120,000 or 130,000 tons of cotton on the market immediately and let it go cheaply without there being a margin on it, or is it the intention to avoid that?

Mr. Amory: It will be the liquidator's duty to ensure that the stock is disposed of to the best advantage of the industry and public funds. It would clearly be wrong to throw it on the market and "job" it off at any price obtainable.
Article 13 provides for accounts. I would remind hon. Gentlemen that in due course final accounts will be laid


before Parliament. To date, the losses of the Raw Cotton Commission exceed the reserve fund, which amounted to £30 million, by about £10 million. Authority is provided for any further losses beyond the reserve fund to be written off in accordance with Section 4 (6) of the Cotton Act.
To any hon. Member who asks what will happen if the present high level of activity in the cotton industry should not continue, I would suggest that in those circumstances, which we hope will not come to pass, it is still more important that the industry should have freedom to buy cotton from the cheapest possible sources. I hope the House will agree that no sound reason has so far come to light for postponing the winding-up of the Commission beyond 31st August and will approve the Order.

10.4 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: The right hon. Gentleman has asked the House to approve the Order, and has shown his usual courtesy and patience, which we appreciate. None the less, the fact remains that the Motion is received with a great deal of resentment by the Opposition.
We object most strongly to its being brought before the House tonight at the conclusion of other important business at the fag-end of the week and on a day when, for various reasons, as we all know very well, many hon. Members find it difficult to be present. It would have been more courteous to the House and fairer to Lancashire and the cotton industry generally if this very important Order could have been debated when there was adequate time for the House to consider it and at a time of day when the newspapers could have taken longer notice of what was said than they are likely to do tonight.
In any case, we regard the introduction of the Order at the present time as a precipitate and unnecessary move. For 12 years raw cotton has been bought in this country on public account by publicly-appointed bodies, whether under the Ministry of Supply, the Board of Trade, or, later on, the Raw Cotton Commission. Even in the last two years, a great deal has been bought on public account, and everybody has agreed throughout our debates that the Raw

Cotton Commission has done its job very well indeed.
Now, the Government are proposing, at the end of that very considerable period of 14 years, to embark on a new venture—because it is a new venture. It is all very well to say that the Liverpool Exchange is being re-opened in the same building as the old, but there is a great deal of difference in the personnel and there are entirely different conditions. I do not want to cover the whole of the arguments which we put forward on the Bill; that would, in any case. I am sure, be out of order, but we do say that to have rushed this thing through at the speed the Government have done has not been to do what they claim in the Order to have done—that is, considered the public interest.
The existence of the Raw Cotton Commission and public buying was a great guarantee of stability in Lancashire. It was a national insurance system for both employers and employed in the cotton industry, and it is by no means certain at the present time that this new venture can be successful. It would have to be done at a much slower rate than the Government have chosen to do it. In fact, the Government have had warnings on every side, not only from hon. Members on this side of the House or in Committee upstairs, but from Lancashire by such people as Mr. W. T. Winterbottom, the well-known chairman of Fine Spinners, Ltd. who said:
The futures market does not remote risks: it only permits them to be shared.
It is light-hearted of the right hon. Gentleman and the President of the Board of Trade to say as cheerfully as they do tonight that it is now quite safe to go forward with the dissolution of the Raw Cotton Commission. We should have had tonight, if we had more time to do it and a better occasion, a much wider review than we have had of the various possibilities and circumstances which confront the trade at the present time. At least, the right hon. Gentleman has not repeated the story which the Lord Privy Seal told us last week, when he said it was necessary to rush the Order through because, if it was not done, the Commission would have to be reappointed.
The right hon. Gentleman has told us quite correctly that the Act empowers the Minister of Materials and the President


of the Board of Trade to put their heads together, and, having considered the public interest, to decide at what time the Commission should be dissolved. But the Minister of State himself has admitted tonight that in November they said that this was the date when the Commission should be dissolved, and, though they have made a courteous pretence of listening to what was said in the meantime, they nevertheless come back to the House and say that the original date which they thought of then will be the date when the Raw Cotton Commission is to come to an end. After all, we are getting that same date.
It is fitting that this Order should have been introduced in the first place in another place, because the real author of the Act is not the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, still less the Minister of State. The real author is Lord Woolton, and it was left to him to do in the House of Lords what he determined last November to do—to bring this Commission to an end at the end of August, whatever happened.

Mr. Amory: May I quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman's last two words—"whatever happened"? That was not what my noble Friend said. He said that would be the date if it was the right date, but that, if anything occurred to make the Government change their mind, the Government would reconsider it. In the event, I think my noble Friend has been extremely accurate in his forecast of what would be the right date.

Mr. Marquand: I was not purporting to quote the noble Lord when I said "whatever happens." I was giving my impression of what passed through his mind. I could have made as accurate a forecast last November as the noble Lord did; as soon as he said what the date was, I could have said what it would be, because it is in the House of Lords that the real power has resided throughout in this matter. In the Committee debates we made suggestions and pleaded with the Government for modifications of the Bill, and the Government listened to us and did not give way at all. It was only when the Bill was debated in the House of Lords, and when noble Friends of mine added to the pleas that we have already made, that concessions were given. It is therefore in the House of Lords that the real power in this matter lies and it was there only that the Government have made concessions.
We all thought on this side of the House that the right hon. Gentleman gave a very fair summary of the misgivings and the fears that we voiced during the Committee and Report stages of the Bill. He outlined them at length, and showed, we were very glad to see, that he had carefully reread what we said during those debates. I would summarise under four heads our misgivings, although I agree that the right hon. Gentleman's longer list was entirely accurate. They boil down, however, to four main types of misgiving.
There was, first, our misgiving about compensation. After more than one false start on the subject of compensation, including the necessity of retrospective legislation, we obtained reasonable assurances in Committee about compensation for the Commission's staff dismissed before the passage of the Bill. Now the right hon. Gentleman has assured us that the staffs who will become redundant after the passage of the Order will have their individual cases considered in the same way by the Raw Cotton Commission as did those other employees.
I cannot pretend to have taken a direct and close interest in this matter of compensation. Naturally, I left it to my colleagues who have these men in their constituencies, but I gather that the assurances are satisfactory. It has been left to the Commission to look at individual cases, but we think the Commission will be as just as reasonable as it has been hitherto.
Our second group of misgivings referred to dollars. to the possible danger of an American depression, and to the difficulties that we foresaw of an excessive amount of dollar expenditure, if the free import of cotton through the Liverpool Exchange on the basis of futures contracts based upon American dollars was allowed to begin. That danger still remains, though I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the situation at the moment is not as bad as we feared one or two months ago it might become.
It has been reassuring to learn that there will be no export subsidy this year and it has been gratifying to find that a depression has not developed to the extent that some people feared it would. We are not entirely certain yet that it will


not develop, and we still think that at least a substantial part of our defences have been pulled down. The possibility of flight of capital through cotton into dollars still exists. We agree with the noble Lord who said in another place that this new venture might mean some increase in dollar expenditure, the extent of which will depend upon the relative prices of other cotton.
We are not clear, either from what the noble Lord said or from what the right hon. Gentleman had said tonight, exactly why the Government feel that any such increase will be of "quite manageable proportions." We at any rate are not satisfied, and if it should turn out—we hope it will not—that our forebodings are justified, we shall be on record as having warned the Government to be extremely careful about this.
It is now agreed, under the concessions which the noble Lord gave, that the contracting-in spinners can have supplies of American cotton bought for them by the Raw Cotton Commission. That Commission has undertaken the special duty of ensuring that these supplies of raw cotton will be available for those contractors for a short period. We should like to know tonight how long exactly it is expected that that period will be. For how long can these contractors expect to receive their American supplies through the agency of the Raw Cotton Commission, or how soon will they be thrown to the wolves of Liverpool and have to obtain it themselves?
Our third misgiving arose, of course, in regard to stocks. We expressed repeated anxiety. The noble Lord in another place gave rather little information about the size of stocks, and the right hon. Gentleman tonight, no doubt having read what took place there, has very wisely given rather fuller information than we then obtained. But I think that we must still try to clear it up a little more.
If the right hon. Gentleman asks later for the leave of the House to reply to some of these questions, it will be very willingly given from this side of the House. During the Committee stage of the Bill in 1953, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) showed the fall in cotton stocks from 294,000 tons in August, 1950, to 267,000

tons in August, 1952, and said, as he repeated tonight that, apart from 1941,
I cannot find any published figure showing lower raw cotton stocks than they were in May and August of this year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 10th December, 1953; c. 69.]
That was May and August, 1953. If they were low then, they have gone even lower still, for the Monthly Digest of Statistics shows that in August, 1953, stocks of raw cotton were 214,000 tons and that in February. 1954, they amounted to only 187,000 tons. There was a slight rise in March, 1954, to 192,000 tons. According to that authoritative publication, the stocks in March, 1954, were certainly lower than those in March, 1953.
It seems to be absolutely clear that the stocks have been steadily going down. In view of that dangerous trend, and in view of the knowledge which everybody has that larger stocks must inevitably be required if they are going to be held in 100 different places instead of by the Raw Cotton Commission in one place, the situation is more serious than the right hon. Gentleman suggested tonight. He said that no opinion had been expressed to him that stocks were dangerously low, and that he did not think that they were necessarily dangerously low. That is not a very confident assurance to give to the House of Commons—to say "Well, the stocks are low but I do not think they are necessarily very dangerously low. I have heard nobody say that they were dangerously low." Surely, before taking the step of dissolving the Commission, he should have been in a position to come to the House and say "The stocks are going up. I am positively certain the situation is now quite healthy and that we have all the cotton we can reasonably require for this new experiment." He cannot say that. He can only justify his optimism about stocks on entirely negative grounds.

Mr. Amory: I do not wish to interrupt, but I should like to say that stocks did go up between April and May. Figures have just been published in the Board of Trade Journal. Stocks at the end of April, 1954, amounted to 188,000 tons and at the end of May they were 195,000 tons. So they did show an upward tendency there. The point I wanted to make, however, was that if the present level of stocks was insufficient, I am sure that


stocks would be added to. There is no reason why they should not be. The stocks that are being held at present are those that, in the opinion of merchants and spinners, are required for the industry.

Mr. Marquand: I am glad to hear that they are going up slightly. As I said, they did apparently rise between February and March by 5,000 tons and now, if I understood the right hon. Gentleman correctly—though it is a little difficult to follow these figures quickly—they have risen again by another 7,000 tons.
The other day in another place the noble Lord said that the present stocks of 910,000 bales were worth £75 million. According to the Report of the Raw Cotton Commission itself, which was presented to Parliament, on 31st August. 1952, the Raw Cotton Commission's own stocks were worth £100 million. It may be said that in the meantime there have been price changes. Maybe there have, but it is not exactly my business to know and I have not at my command all the expertise available to the right hon. Gentleman. I should like to know whether the fact that the Raw Cotton Commission in 1952 had in hand stocks worth £100 million while the whole industry today has stocks worth only £75 million means what, on the face of it, it appears to mean—that the Commission was certainly looking after stocks a great deal better in August, 1952, than private buying, timorous and afraid and wondering exactly what is to happen, has been able to do since this degree of freedom was given to it.
It seems to me a most disturbing and unsatisfactory situation and not one in which one can honestly say that it is now clearly in the public interest to go forward with the new experiment. That is what the Ministers were required to do. They were required to be completely satisfied that it was in the public interest. I should like to know, if possible, how those stocks are distributed. We are told that they are equivalent to five and a half months' consumption by the whole industry, but how are they calculated and what is included in the figure of the stocks? We know that less than one-third of it, about £20 million, is in the hands of the Commission. Where is the rest? Is some of it represented by work in progress? Are we misleading ourselves when

we are talking about stocks? Where is it and who has it?
If the Commission has less than one-third, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied—and this is a question which he and his right hon. Friends must surely have considered before deciding that it was in the public interest—that that £20 million is adequate and entirely sufficient for the needs of the unit spinners who depend on the Raw Cotton Commission? On the evidence we have seen, we are not satisfied about that. We are certainly not satisfied that in this position the whole future responsibility for quite a long time to come—because it is still a long time—should be placed in the hands of a liquidator. We have been told tonight that he has been the vice-chairman of the Raw Cotton Commission. I understand that he has also been chairman of an even more influential body in the constituency of the Minister of State, Foreign Office, and I am not sure whether that is true or not.
I have no doubt that the liquidator is a perfectly competent person to be so appointed, and I am sure that he will try to do his duty, but in this doubtful, chancey situation, with all the uncertainty of stocks and overseas supplies, to which I will refer in a moment, we are not satisfied that this matter should be left to a liquidator.
We have been told tonight that the most "sensible" thing is to leave it to a liquidator. It appears that in the eyes of this Government, the most "sensible" thing to do is to leave the greater part of the lorries of this country in the hands of a liquidator, and that the mose sensible way to deal with the steel industry is to put a large chunk of it in the hands of a Holding and Realisation Agency responsible, not to the Minister of Supply, but to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. H. Wilson: And the film industry.

Mr. Marquand: And the film industry, too, as my right hon. Friend says. The Government's solution is not to return industry, as we have been told they would, to private enterprise but to return it to liquidators. We are not satisfied that that is in the public interest. Indeed, we are convinced that it is not in the public interest, and that is a strong reason why we object to this Order.
Closely allied to the problem of stocks is the problem of the supplies of colonial cotton. We have a twofold concern about it. We have a concern about the availability of the long-staple cottons, which are largely grown in the Colonial Territories, for Lancashire in its growing need for this type of cotton to enable it to meet the growing competition with other countries like Japan. Lancashire needs to shift over to the finer types of production in the face of such competition and the competition in the other types of fibre. We have in mind the needs of Lancashire and the needs of the Colonies.
Much of the enormous development of colonial cotton growing which has been so successful and which has so markedly increased is directly due to the creation and existence of the Raw Cotton Commission. Consider why Lord Derby, the President of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, at its annual meeting a short time ago, should have thought fit to state that he hoped that the easing of the dollar restrictions and the reopening of the Liverpool Cotton Market, desirable as these were in themselves—no doubt, he was there speaking with the traditional voice of Lord Derby—would not lead to any diminution in the amount of Empire cotton used in this country. He expressed that hope obviously because he had the fear that there might be some such development.
It is true that three of the contracts for colonial cotton are being kept on if the colonial producers wish. We were told some months ago that these three long-term contracts would be kept in existence and honoured if the colonial producers wished. That has been repeated tonight. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to say—in fact, he may like to interrupt me again now—that no sort of pressure has been put upon these colonial producers to give up the long-term contracts.

Mr. Amory: May I give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. We are perfectly happy and prepared to carry out the remainder of the contracts for the full term if it is the wish of the Colonies concerned that that should be done.

Mr. Marquand: I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says. This continued repetition of "if they wish it" is

just a cautionary phrase, and there is no suggestion that they—

Mr. Amory: I should like to make the point that there are some grounds for thinking that some of the Colonies are in two minds whether it would be to their advantage for these long-term contracts to run out their full period. That is why I said, "if they wish."

Mr. Marquand: When the noble Lord in another place was asked whether, going with this undertaking to keep these present long-term contracts in being, there was any understanding that new long-term contracts would be negotiated, no reply was made. We had had the reply already, in Committee upstairs, when we dealt with the Bill. I am quite sure that the Government do not intend to allow the Colonial Marketing Boards or the Colonial Governments—even "if they wish"—to enter into new long-term contracts with the liquidator or the Ministry of Materials.
The right hon. Gentleman has indicated that, for certain reasons, particular Colonial Marketing Boards or Governments might not wish to enter into longterm contracts. We were told to look at the example of Uganda who, although she used to have long-term contracts, is now doing quite well trading on the more familiar pattern. But I hope that those who are responsible for growing and marketing cotton in Nigeria will look carefully at the figures before they succumb to such blandishments. In 1948, Nigeria put on the market 45,000 bales of cotton. This year the figure was 140,000 bales, which is a remarkable increase and represents a great advance for the people of Nigeria and greatly widened opportunities for the farmers of that country. That expansion coincides with the entry by the Raw Cotton Commission into the long-term contracts field.
I am told that a development premium has been paid on this cotton, to encourage the production of more cotton for the fulfilment of these contracts. If Nigeria finds, on the termination of this contract, that she has to sell a great deal of her cotton in other markets—perhaps through Liverpool—I should like to know whether that development premium will still be paid. If the right hon. Gentleman is unable to tell me, we shall seek the information from his right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary.
We are told that the Cotton Association and the cotton spinners together are considering whether, within the year, they can produce some form of cover, or futures contract, against which Empire cotton wilt' be tenderable. We welcome this consideration as some slight concession. It was first suggested that they might consider this over a much longer period, and it came down to a promise to try to do something within the next 12 months. It is tremendously important, if we are to have the restoration of the old-fashioned type of private trading, through futures markets and all the rest, that new Empire cottons should find their due place and not suffer an undue disadvantage.
The promise that this will be done within a year is a valuable one, but surely that, above all, is a justification for saying that the Government should have brought forward this Order one year from now and not tonight? They should have waited at least until the last of these long-term contracts ran out, in May, 1955, or, better still, until they were completely satisfied that this consideration of the new futures contract had been completed. Had this Order then come forward their case would have been stronger; but because they have failed to do that, and for all the other reasons that I have given, we certainly are not in favour of the House accepting the Order and we hope it will be rejected.

10.35 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Wentworth Schofield: During the passage of the Cotton Bill through the House, many fears were expressed by hon. Members opposite about the difficulties which would confront the industry when the method of importing raw cotton into this country was changed from the system of Government bulk buying, which was instituted as a wartime necessity, to the private buying by merchants and spinners which had always been the custom before the war.
Grave fears were also expressed by hon. Members opposite as to the ability of merchants to provide the industry with the cotton which it required. If my memory serves me correctly, during the Committee stages great stress was laid by one or two hon. Members opposite on the difficulties which would be found about the importation and securing of some of the longer staple varieties of

cotton, particularly those which come from the Sudan. As my right hon. Friend said tonight, experience has shown that the fears which were then expressed were greatly exaggerated and happily have proved to be unfounded. Indeed, instead of the state of chaos and confusion which was forecast, especially during the early stages, the period of transition continues to be moving smoothly without harm or injury to the industry. At no time since the change has taken place has any report been received of spinners having found any particular difficulty in obtaining cotton which was required for their use.

Mr. H. Wilson: Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman name anyone on this side of the House who said there would be chaos or confusion in the early stages of the establishment of the free market; and, secondly, since there were forecasts on this side of the House about the difficulties of supply on the assumption that the Raw Cotton Commission was going to be wound up, is it not a fact that the spinners so far have had the protection of the Commission which the Government are now seeking to abolish?

Lieut.-Colonel Schofield: I said that if I remembered correctly those things had been said, but in the case of Sudan cotton, about which special fears were expressed, there has been no difficulty. Large firms, such as the combines, have attended the auctions in the Sudan and have bought their supplies, and the smaller independent firms—the single unit firms—have secured their supplies from merchants who, in turn, attended these auctions and bought their supplies.
One of the reasons that has been advanced for prolonging the life of the Commission was the long-term bulk contracts which were entered into by the Commission with certain of our Colonial Territories, such as Nigeria, Aden and Nyasaland. It was felt by some hon. Members that the Commission should continue in existence at least until those long-term contracts had been completed. I heard many misgivings on the subject during the Committee stage from some hon. Members as to the effects which the winding-up of the Commission would have upon the future use of colonial cotton in this country.
If I thought for one moment that the only way to ensure the use of colonial


cottons in this country was by a continuation of the Raw Cotton Commission, I also would have supported the Motion to retain the Commission, but I do not hold that view. Indeed, I see no reason at all why Lancashire spinners should cease to use colonial cottons merely because the method of importation has changed. My concern for colonial cottons extends much further than the completion of these long-term contracts which were placed by the Raw Cotton Commission. I want to see more and more colonial cottons used by the spinners of Lancashire.
At the same time, it is fair to say that those who hold responsibility for marketing of these colonial cottons must realise that, just as there has been a change in the buying mechanism of the British cotton industry, so also there has been a change in the conditions which govern the buying and selling of commodities in the markets of the world. The seller's market which has been such a feature of world post-war trade has changed in most cases today into a buyer's market, and in a buyer's market it behoves the seller to make the buying of the commodity as easy and convenient as possible for those who have to buy.
Futhermore, colonial cotton producers must realise that the system of bulk buying of complete crops of cotton has now changed to more specialised buying of smaller quantities. It is in that direction that a great deal could be done by various colonial marketing boards to facilitate the buying of colonial cottons by spinners in this country. If colonial cottons are to remain as a staple part of Lancashire consumption the whole system of marketing them must change.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: In this part of his argument the hon. and gallant Member appears to be advocating the retention of marketing boards in the Colonies. Why, therefore, is he against the retention in this country of the corresponding organisation which would buy from those marketing boards?

Lieut.-Colonel Schofield: I am merely saying that those marketing boards exist in the Colonies. I am not talking about their retention or otherwise.

Mr. Silverman: They exist here, why abolish them?

Lieut.-Colonel Schofield: I am talking about making it possible for colonial cottons to be brought into this country.
It is necessary that the whole system of marketing these cottons should be changed. Instead of British buyers having to go to Africa to buy their stocks, would it not be more satisfactory if these marketing boards or companies set up their own organisations to sell the cottons in this country and to keep in this country sufficient stocks of cotton to ensure that spinners could more easily rely upon the continuity of supply of these cottons, in order to maintain their own quality of yarn? Colonial growers should realise that not only is there a ready market in this country for their cottons, but that the shop window for their cottons should not be in Africa but somewhere in this country, preferably in Liverpool, Manchester or both.
For example, the general character of the Nigerian cotton which is mentioned in the Order is closely similar to that of American cotton, and Nigerian cotton is approximately equal in value to similar staple cottons in America. The spinning qualities of Nigerian cotton are well known to Lancashire spinners and are appreciated by them. Because of its close similarity to American cotton, I submit that that is one of the most suitable of the colonial growths for ultimate inclusion as a tenderable cotton against the Liverpool futures market.
The Nigerian cotton crop is marketed by the Nigerian Produce Marketing Company Limited, with offices in London. Though London may be the best place for selling commodities of various kinds, it is certainly not the best place for selling cotton. The best place is in Lancashire, either in Liverpool or Manchester, on the doorstep of the man who has to use it. If colonial cottons are made easily available to Lancashire spinners and are comparable in price for equal types of quality—

Mr. Leslie Hale: The hon. and gallant Gentleman did not deal with the point put by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). What he has to face is that if we get a Tory Government in Nigeria there will not be a produce board at all or a marketing organisation. There will not be a shopfront either in London or Liverpool. We shall be back with the old system of


competition, battling about price and bartering about transport charges, and so on. Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman in favour of that? Is he in favour of bulk purchasing, or is he not? Is he in favour of collective marketing, or is he not? The idea that we should be competitive buyers and the whole world should provide us with collective sellers is putting it a little high.

Lieut.-Colonel Schofield: The position is that there are these marketing boards in the Colonies.

Mr. Silverman: We have a Cotton Commission.

Lieut.-Colonel Schofield: We had a Commission. The whole system has changed. We should consider how we can best bring cotton to the industry. Our cotton trade should not be the shuttlecock of politics, as some hon. Gentlemen seem to want it to be. I am trying to show how best we can get the cotton here. These cottons are comparable in quality to American cottons of similar staple. The producers can sell them to the spinners if they want to because the spinners like colonial cottons, but if they are made difficult to acquire the valuable goodwill which has grown up will disappear.
It is in the power of the colonial marketing boards, if they wish to retain that goodwill, to set up some organisation for getting the cotton into this country. In that way they can retain the goodwill. I hope that the day is not far distant when every one of these Colonial Territories will have some kind of selling organisation in this country, whether collective or individual. I do not care which it is so long as they sell the cotton to us. If they do that I believe that the future for colonial cottons is very bright indeed.

10.49 p.m.

Mr. F. Blackburn: The hon. and Gallant Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) has not relieved my anxieties any more than the Minister did. I believe that the hon. and gallant Member is interested in colonial development, but I think that we ought to cast a veil over his comments about the marketing of colonial cottons.
First, I want to pay a compliment to the Government. Some of my hon. Friends may be a little surprised that I

should do that, but I think that the Government deserve to be congratulated on the Explanatory Note, which explains that the Raw Cotton Commission (Dissolution) Order is an Order for the dissolution of the Raw Cotton Commission. Otherwise we might have thought that it was a Conservative attack upon the cotton industry and upon colonial development.
Recently, speaking of a Bill where one of the Schedules was being deleted, I said that I hoped that it could be preserved in the archives of Parliament as a dread warning to future draftsmen of Parliamentary Bills of what could really be done with the English language when one is trying. I should like this Explanatory Note to be preserved side by side with that Schedule, for entirely different reasons, of course.
I suggest that the Minister take this Order back and have it re-written. It is evidence of the confusion of thought which exists on the Government Front Bench. It may, of course, be that they do not know from day to day what are the demands of the 1922 Committee. Here we are presented with an Order which says that the Minister shall do this and that, meaning, of course, the Minister of Materials. Then we have an Order transferring the functions of the Minister of Materials. So every time in this Order that we see "Board or Minister" we have to read it as "Board," and every time we see "Minister" we have to read it as "Board."
In his remarks, the Minister, quite fairly, outlined the fears we expressed during the various stages of the Bill. I still have those fears. First there is the question of dollars; second of stocks, and third of colonial cottons. Though there has been some improvement in the dollar position, we have only got back to the state of our gold and dollar reserves which existed when this Government came to power in 1951. Any upset in the world might have serious consequences for us. We must be careful how we use whatever dollars we have.
With regard to stocks, I sincerely hope that our fears will prove unfounded. It would be a tragedy if once again Lancashire were thrown on the scrap heap of unemployment because of a shortage of stocks. The Minister agrees that the stocks at present are the lowest known in


the history of the industry since records were kept.
Coming to the question of colonial cotton and referring to Article 3 (2) of this Order, it states:
Unless at any time the Minister otherwise directs, the liquidator shall cam out all subsisting contracts with the Nigerian Produce Marketing Company Ltd., the Abyan Development Board and the Governor of Nyasaland for the purchase of raw cotton.
When I pressed the Minister on Committee stage about what organisation was to take over these contracts, he said it could easily be done either by the Board of Trade or the Ministry of Materials. We left it at that. But now a liquidator is to take them over.
I think it interesting to trace briefly the history of the deterioration of the views of the Government with regard to these colonial contracts, going back to January, 1952. Then the Secretary of State for the Colonies, replying to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood), referred to a plan for increasing production in Uganda by 50 per cent., in Tanganyika by 80 per cent., Nigeria by 300 per cent., Nyasaland by 100 per cent. and the Aden Protectorate by 60 per cent. He was rather boasting of the development which is taking place, and ended with these words:
Certain Colonial producers, namely. Nigeria, Nyasaland and the Aden Protectorate, have entered into long-term contracts with the United Kingdom Raw Cotton Commission, which, by offering a stable market for some years ahead, serve to encourage expansion of production."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January, 1952; Vol. 495, c. 175.]
Coming to 1953, the Minister, in reply to my right hon. Friend, the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), said:
The long-term contracts between the Raw Cotton Commission. Aden, Nigeria, and Nyasaland, to which the colonial Administrations attach great importance, will be honoured, and consultations on the methods of doing this will commence shortly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1953: Vol. 520, c. 139.]
By the following day we had the Second Reading of the Bill, and the Minister of State said:
How it is to be done is being studied at the present time, and I have no reason to believe that it will be beyond the wit of man to devise an arrangement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1953; Vol. 520, c. 1851.]

The wit of man has operated—and we have got a liquidator.

Mr. Amory: I am sure the hon. Gentleman will not have forgotten Article 3 (3) of the Draft Order. If he will look there, he will see that the liquidator has to act subject to any direction given him by the Minister.

Mr. Blackburn: Yes, certainly. It is still the liquidator who is acting. If I were to find out all the times when the Minister or the board have to give directions, I should have to take every item. But we are referring in this particular subsection to long-term contracts. There is absolutely no mention of the bulk purchasing made of the Uganda and Tanganyika crops, nor of the West Indian crops, where we bought the crop even before it was sown. Surely it is vitally important, not only from the point of view of Colonial Development, but from the point of view of providing alternative supplies of raw cotton, that we should have these alternative supplies. I say that those three fears, of the dollar position, the stocks, and of the colonial cotton position, still remain very much in my mind, and nothing that has been said at any stage of the Bill, and nothing that has been said tonight, has helped to relieve me of those fears.
Finally, I want to call attention to Article 15. I am told that this is a very usual form of words to be found in Orders of this kind, but I must admit that I do not personally like them. They are:
… shall release the liquidator, and such release shall discharge him from all liability in respect of any act done or default made by him in the administration of the affairs of the Commission or otherwise to his conduct as liquidator.
I do not know the gentleman who is to be appointed as liquidator. He is no doubt a man of very high reputation and integrity, but the words. I think, are very dangerous, and even if they are used regularly in an Order of this kind it is a mistake that they should be put in. If a man should make a mistake, even if he is occupying a high position, he should be responsible for any acts or default that he has made.
My hon. Friends and I, knowing that our fears are the fears that we had at the beginning, can only regret that the Government have shown this indecent haste in bringing forward this Order at this time.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Richard Fort: With regard to the last point raised by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) on Article 15, I should have thought that it was simpler to put in an indemnity Article in an Order of this sort instead of having to ask the House at some later date, perhaps in a year or so hence, to pass an Indemnity Bill indemnifying the unhappy liquidator who, by some legal mischance, found himself in a position where his own fortune might be involved, even though he himself was only incidentally concerned. I should have thought it showed more foresight to cover that contingency in this way.

Mr. Blackburn: Am I to understand that the hon. Gentleman is anticipating that happening?

Mr. Fort: We have had plenty of indemnity Acts passed by this House even during my short time here, and the hon. Gentleman, with his longer association with the House, must have seen several indemnity Acts passed by it, and must realise the difficulty with which liquidators may be confronted.

Mr. S. Silverman: Not in advance.

Mr. Fort: It is as well to provide in advance for these things.
Hon. Members opposite have talked at some length about Empire cotton which, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) said, is of great concern to everyone connected with the industry, as well as to those directly concerned with Empire development. There are many ways of selling cotton to this country, even though there are marketing boards in the country where the cotton is grown.
The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde talked as though the only way of dealing with raw cotton is for one marketing board to deal with another marketing board in this country, while overlooking the fact that one of the largest and most prosperous of all the colonial marketing boards, the Cocoa Marketing Board in the Gold Coast, sells in the free markets of the world without any difficulty at all. What can be done with cocoa can quite certainly be done with cotton.

Mr. Blackburn: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that if we want to develop

the growing of Empire cotton it is far better to have an Empire market?

Mr. Fort: But there is an Empire market whether the cotton is bought and sold by strict bilateralism with a marketing board in England or by buying and sale on the Liverpool or other markets of Bombay, or even eventually, perhaps, in European markets. Buying and selling raw cotton is really not quite as inflexible as the hon. Gentleman tries to make out.

Mr. Hale: I did not quite follow the hon. Gentleman's earlier remarks about the liquidator. I was wondering why he thinks his position an unhappy one. If this Order is passed—I hope it will not be—we are surely not going to appoint the liquidator of the Raw Cotton Commission with the cynicism with which we appointed the inquiry into Crichel Down or the Land Tribunal of the Minister of Agriculture.

Mr. Fort: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman with his usually nimble wit should have reverted to some remarks from which I have moved on, and, having moved on, I think I will stay moved on.
Turning to the last question which so disturbed the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde—the size of stocks—it is quite true that stocks have been reduced. But when we talk about reduced tonnage, we should remember that we still have something like five months' stocks in this country, and probably rather more than that, which are at least as large, and probably larger, than the stocks carried before the war.
The only reason there were such large stocks under the Raw Cotton Commission was that the Commission was legally bound, having a monopoly, to meet any demand which was made upon it in this country. With the more flexible arrangement of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, it is certain that five or six months' stock is large enough, especially as the spot market working has been one of the most successful features of the few months' experience of the exchange which we have had so far. I think that shortage of stocks is one of the least well-founded fears.
Even if all the fears were justified, there is one point on which hon. Members opposite have been silent so far. It was a point constantly referred to during earlier debates. That was, that


the Raw Cotton Commission had in recent years been costing the country more than £20 million yearly.
I would be the first to argue that the textile industry requires all the help it can get in this wicked world; but a direct subsidy of that order is more than even we can ask for without going into the causes for it more deeply than we have in discussing this measure. We come back to what was said in earlier debates, namely, that the sooner we get rid of a Commission costing such enormous sums, the better for the industry and for the country.

11.12 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: The hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) has made a speech which had little to do with the Order. There may be differences of opinion on whether it was a convincing or persuasive speech; but it was a speech in support of the Second Reading of the Bill, not in support of this Order. I should like to endorse what was said by my right hon. Friend at the beginning of his speech, and to protest at this Order having been brought before us late at night in this way.
No one on either side of the House will regard this Order as being anything but an important matter. For it to be brought before us at a time when it is not possible for it to be discussed adequately or reasonably is one more proof of the many we have had in these matters of the Government's cynicism and humbug in dealing with the cotton industry. They might have been a little more considerate for the Tory hon. Members who represent Liverpool constituencies. If there is a city which is vitally concerned in this matter, I should have thought it was Liverpool. Yet there is not a single Tory representative of Liverpool in the House.

Mr. William Shepherd: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House how many Labour Members from Liverpool are present?

Mr. Silverman: This is a Government Order. The position is by no means the same. The abolition of the Raw Cotton Commission and the restoration of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange are Government policy. The Order that we are

considering is an affirmative Resolution and requires a positive vote of the House of Commons. It cannot become operative without it. The obligation of the Government is surely to see that there are enough hon. Members present to carry its policy on the affirmative Resolution.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members being present—

Mr. Silverman: I notice that even—

Mr. Graham Page: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me? He referred to the Liverpool Members. No doubt he recognises Crosby as part of Liverpool—it is next door, at least—and that is the constituency which I represent.

Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member has lived too long near Merseyside to suppose that we regard Crosby as being part of Liverpool. If that is the best that he can do in defence of the Liverpool Members, I think he might better retain his seat. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Nelson and Colne?"] Nelson and Colne is vitally interested, and when it is then its representative attends the House. I thought Liverpool was vitally represented, but where are the Liverpool Members? Where are those Members who so enthusiastically acclaimed the Prime Minister's inadvertent speech from a Liverpool platform during the General Election, without which this Act would never have become law and this Order would never have been presented?

Mr. Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Member to assert for the record that there is not an hon. Member with Liverpool interests in the House when there is one such hon. Member sitting on the Government Front Bench at the moment?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): That is not a point of order, but I think that we should come to the Order now.

Mr. Silverman: In any case, the hon. Member to whom reference has been made is here, not to take part in the discussion, but at a suitable moment to see that the discussion comes to an end. That is why he came to the House, and in a few minutes he will do it.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Buchan-Hepburn): Who said so?

Mr. Hale: It has become a habit.

Mr. Silverman: The Order which we are considering is made under and by virtue of Section 4 (1) of the Cotton Act, 1954. That Section reads:
The Board and the Minister, if at any time they are satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so, may by order jointly provide for the winding up and dissolution of the Commission; and if such an order is made the following provisions of this section shall have effect.
It is of some interest to note who is the Minister referred to in that subsection, because in this way we get some light on the necessities which drove the Government to put this important Order before the House at apparently so unfortunate a time. The Minister referred to in that subsection is the Minister of Materials If the Government had wanted to put this Order before the House at a more material time, they would have had to wait until next week. Next week there will not be a Minister of Materials, and therefore no joint opinion of the Board and the Minister of Materials could be reached, and therefore I suppose the Government were compelled to bring this Order before the House this week because next week there will be no competent authority in the Government to enable them to bring the Order at all.

Mr. Amory: indicated dissent.

Mr. Silverman: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I am quite willing to hear any objection to that view. Having made that point, may I make another derived from the same Section?
In its language the Section appears to mean that under the Act there is no obligation at all ever to propose or promulgate an Order bringing the Raw Cotton Commission to an end. There is a discretion in the President of the Board of Trade jointly with the Minister of Materials. He may propose such an Order as this only if at any time they are satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so, and that appears to mean that they are not bound ever so to decide, that there may never come a time when it is in the public interest to bring the Raw Cotton Commission to an end, but that if there ever came such a time then they would be empowered under this

subsection to propose such an Order as this.
But although those are the words of the subsection, we know from other parts of the Act that it is completely insincere, that this pretence that there was some discretion in the Government to decide to bring the Raw Cotton Commission to an end or not to do so, depending on their view of what the public interest required at any particular moment, is totally untrue.
Proof of that is to be found in Section 1 of the Act. Section 1 provides:
The following provisions of section one of the Cotton (Centralised Buying) Act, 1947 …
shall cease to have effect, on the enactment of this Measure and not on the adoption of an Order. It then states the provisions which shall cease to have effect, as follows:
"(a) in subsection (1) (which provides that there shall be a Raw Cotton Commission who shall be charged with the duty therein mentioned),
(b) subsection (2) (which makes provision as to the quantities, growths, types and qualities of the raw cotton to be bought and imported by the Commission), and
(c) subsection (4) (which imposes restrictions on the prices to be charged by the Commission)."
All that was abolished by the Act itself, and those are the main purposes which have been discharged with great satisfaction to everybody ever since 1940, or between 1940 and a date which I will mention in a moment. The later Section, under which this Order is proposed, although purporting to deal with what the national or public interest requires, really has no bearing upon the matter, because if the public interest at any time required the existence of a Raw Cotton Commission it would require it for just those functions which, in the main, are abolished by Section 1 of the Act.
Moreover, when one looks at Section 1 (5), one finds that it says:
This section shall be deemed to have come into operation on the first day of September, nineteen hundred and fifty-three.
So that, since 1st September, 1953, all the main functions of the Raw Cotton Commission have in fact been in abeyance. It has had no useful functions to perform, apart from one or two which have been referred to. In the light of that fact, to refer to the public interest in the matter is merely to attempt to mislead


the House and the public into believing that some questions of public interest have been considered by the Government when, in fact, no such questions have been so considered.
The opening words of the Order are:
The Board of Trade and the Minister of Materials, being satisfied that it is in the public interest to provide for the winding up and dissolution of the Raw Cotton Commission and in exercise of the powers conferred upon them by Section 4 of the Cotton Act, 1954, hereby make the following Order …
When were they satisfied? The main obligation of the Commission had been abolished since 1st September, 1953. We know that in recent weeks the President of the Board of Trade has paid a visit to the United States of America, where he has been discussing generally the question of restrictions on trade. I suppose that the only new influences that could possibly have been brought to bear upon him in this matter since 1st September, 1953, must have been communicated to him by Mr. Stassen during that visit.

Mr. Hale: Or Mr. Cohn, or Mr. Schine.

Mr. Silverman: That is perhaps an unfortunate reference, because Mr. Cohn has lost his office; the Minister of Materials has lost his office, and the 1922 Committee would like a number of other Ministers to lose their offices. Rumour has it that the President of the Board of Trade is one of them. So we know that if the Government had waited a few days there would have been no Minister of Materials to come to a joint opinion with the President of the Board of Trade about the matter—and who knows how many days after that it would have been before there was a new President of the Board of Trade, who would have had to consider the matter again from scratch, and consider what was required in the public interest about the functions of a Raw Cotton Commission which had been abolished in any case on 1st September, 1953?

Mr. H. Nicholls: The hon. Member's arguments are as ill-founded as his rumours.

Mr. Silverman: The hon. Gentleman is a much better authority on the proceedings of the 1922 Committee than I ever pretended to be, and I am sure that his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade would have been greatly

relieved to hear that intervention. I only hope that the hon. Member is prepared to give his right hon. Friend that guarantee in writing, and to pay the proper compensation if he turns out to be wrong. The hon. Member must be careful. If he goes on distributing unfounded and unauthorised pledges of this kind he might find himself outside the 1922 Committee, and what his future in politics would be then heaven only knows. I know one thing, he will not come and try to unseat me in Nelson and Colne.
The whole history of this matter shows that the public interest has never been in the Government's mind with regard to the Commission. The origin of all this is that the Prime Minister, in the course of the General Election, went down to Liverpool and got intoxicated, as he often does, by the enthusiasm of his audience. It was a Liverpool audience, made up of people who were seeking to re-establish the Cotton Exchange, and the Prime Minister thought that the best thing to do was to give them the pledge they wanted. Having made so many pledges during the General Election and finding one at least that he might be able to carry out with the full approval of the 1922 Committee, he set in being the Cotton Bill under which this Order is made.
There has never been an example in my Parliamentary life-time, now extending to some 19 years, in which it has been clearer that the policy of the Government has been dictated purely by ideological considerations with no reference whatever to the facts of the situation or the public interest. All those circumstances which made the House of Commons in 1939 abolish the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool and substitute for it a system of public collective buying on a collective basis by people with no personal interest in the matter except the public interest are as important today as they were in 1940.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Except there is no war.

Mr. Silverman: There is no war it is true, and in 1940 there was one, but I am thinking now not so much of the question of whether there is a war going on or not but of the world market conditions which, though caused in 1940 by the war, have not been greatly eased nearly 10 years after the end of it. Do


hon. Members opposite think that the economic state of the world is such that we can really rely for the public interest on the jungle buying of Liverpool?
Look at the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel. Schofield). He is a man who knows the cotton trade and is a man of great experience and great responsibility. He made a most eloquent speech in defence of collective marketing of cotton by the Colonies and collective selling. It was a most extraordinary speech to make, because it was a persuasive, convincing speech about the merits of collective selling made in support of an Order design to abolish collective buying.
I am persuaded that, but for the political background to all this and the ideological doctrinaireness which has inspired the Government in all these matters, the hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale would have been the last Member of this House to advise us at this time and in these circumstances to abolish the public safeguards which the Raw Cotton Commission provided, and provided with the common consent of the House under an emergency in 1940, which emergency, so far as these matters are concerned, is by no means at an end. I hope, therefore, that the House will reject this Order.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Thornton: I have followed the debate with great interest, as no doubt the whole of Lancashire will do. I do not think it can be denied that I speak with the voice of Lancashire, if I do not speak for Lancashire. I believe that I represent what is overwhelmingly the public interest of the County Palatine of Lancashire, and I speak from a lifetime's experience in our great industry which has known so many ups and downs, sufferings and vicissitudes.
I was interested to hear the Minister refer to the pronouncement of the American Government that there would be no export subsidies for cotton during the ensuing 12 months. Doubtless there was some connection between that important pronouncement and the efforts to initiate successfully the working of the Liverpool futures market. I am not quarrelling with that, but the fact remains that, in the opinion of many experts, raw cotton prices still remain as

brittle as the prices of any raw commodity in the world. Therein lie great dangers in the months ahead. I am pleased to note that at its initiation the futures market has run more smoothly than I had feared, but it must be acknowledged that the testing time has not yet come and that the period ahead is one of considerable uncertainty.
The hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) said that there was not a shortage of long staple cottons. I have my doubts about that, but it must be remembered that while stocks are still substantial in Lancashire they are now dispersed and privately held, as compared with centrally held stocks of much larger quantity. Anyone can appreciate that the maximum utilisation of cotton and the maximum choice of quality and variety comes from one centrally held stock rather than from separately owned stocks dispersed in various parts of the country. Whatever its disadvantages may have been, its centrally held stocks was unquestionably one of the great advantages of the Raw Cotton Commission.
I want to draw attention to the Report of the Operative Cotton Spinners' and Twiners' Provincial Association of Bolton and Surrounding Districts and what was said in the Report by Mr. Gregson, a highly competent and responsible official of the cotton trade unions. Mr. Gregson said:
We are satisfied that the Raw Cotton Commission has succeeded in the main in supplying a better quality of cotton for all ranges of counts than private enterprise ever supplied in the whole of its history.
That is the opinion of a man of very great experience in looking into operatives' complaints.
He went on:
Anyone who takes the trouble to read our Annual Reports of 30 years or so ago will find that there was scarcely a week when your secretaries had not to visit from one to six mills on bad spinning complaints. Even as recently as 1938. the total number of disputes in our Province was 72, of which approximately half arose from bad spinning. During 1953, the secretaries have examined spinning conditions at three mills only. At one of these mills it was found that certain cardroom faults were preventing out members from producing a yarn of the high quality expected by the management, but the spin was not bad. At the other two mills, the spinning was well below a passable standard. The fact that at both of these mills cotton had been bought privately, throughout the year, may or may not


have been the reason for the bad spin. If it was not, then it was a remarkable coincidence.
My information from the spinning trade unions is that these complaints of bad spinning are coming back again. That is an important fear in the minds of textile operatives. Rightly or wrongly, as the "Manchester Guardian" pointed out, the cotton operatives of Lancashire have come to associate good spinning and good weaving with the Commission.
Reference was made by the Minister to the fact that soon there will be choice and freedom of selection. I say, with respect, that we have had some and that we did not like it. During the '20s and '30s when the markets of the world were free, when choice was free, and these men were in the saddle, we had nothing but bad spins and bad weaves throughout the whole of Lancashire.
It has been in the post-war period, during the life of the Commission with its centrally held stocks, that these complaints have almost been eliminated, because it has been possible for managements to get the identical grade and quality they wanted for their jobs. With the best will in the world that choice will not be available under the new system. I forecast that we shall drift back to bad spinning and bad weaving. That is of great importance, because the bulk of the operatives in the industry are paid on a piece-rate system. If the work is bad and the quality low, that means more work for less wages.
Inevitably that will cause trouble. Further trouble in the labour market will mean that operatives will get fed up and leave the mills to find other jobs. In most of the post-war period the limiting factor to increased production has been the shortage of operatives. This matter of the satisfaction of labour is of paramount importance if the industry is to continue to make its contribution to the well-being of the nation.
Reference was made to the £20 million loss of the Commission. The Commission made mistakes. There is no doubt about that. One of its mistakes was that it sold its cotton too cheaply. It did that at a time when profit margins were fantastic, when the profit margins of the spinners and weavers were the highest in recorded history. During that time the spinners exerted pressure on the

Commission to reduce its prices. That was one of the reasons why a substantial amount of that £20 million was lost.
The winding up of the Commission is one of the most important, significant and far-reaching events in our industry since the concentration of production in the war-time years in specified mills and the closing of others. The Cotton Act, 1954, whether we like it or not, provides for the winding up of the Commission. That Act was a reckless gamble with the future of an industry employing 300,000 people.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Come (Mr. S. Silverman) pointed out so effectively, Section 4 of the Act requires the Minister to act in the public interest. Several months ago it was announced that the public interest would be served by the Commission being wound up on 31st August. And now in July the Government announce that their former guess was correct. I am not convinced that the decision has been made in the public interest. I think that it is the Liverpool Cotton Association and certain important cotton spinners connected with that Association who have been responsible for determining what is the public interest.
I wish to ask the Minister if the cotton trade unions, who represent the people who spin and weave and produce the wealth, believe that the public interest will be served by winding up the Raw Cotton Commission on 31st August, 1954. I am sure that they do not. Not many months ago the Prime Minister made a statement referring to the fact that the future holds many risks and unknowable factors. This is the period when the Government are taking this risk with a great exporting industry. Is this the time to make so fundamental a change? I suggest that this is not the time for such an action. Even if the Government are determined to get rid of the Commission, they should keep it for some while yet to see how events unfold.
There has been built up a myth, largely from Liverpool sources, that what we need today is to get back to the good old free market and free enterprise period; to the Liverpool futures market of the years before the war, which would be of great benefit to the cotton textile industry. Although it is argued that that


period served the industry well and that the futures market was a wonderful organisation, the history of the industry is full of responsible complaints and grievances about the operations of these gentlemen in Liverpool who are now being put back into control of the supply and distribution of raw cotton.
I wish to refer to colonial cotton supplies, and particularly to the supply of Nigerian cotton. I understand from well informed quarters that there is danger of great difficulties in this market. I wish to quote from a letter sent to me from a responsible person in the industry, who states:
The foremost cotton I have in mind at the moment is Nigerian cotton, for the Raw Cotton Commission contracted for the whole of the crop … I understand that this country, the United Kingdom, subsidises Nigerian cotton to the extent of £4 per bale. The position now arises, how is the next year's crop to be disposed of? No scheme has yet been put forward which is satisfactory to the Nigerian Produce Marketing Company.
I wish to ask the Minister if that is correct, that no scheme has yet been put forward which is satisfactory to the Nigerian Produce Marketing Company, of which Sir Eric Townsley is the managing director, who is over here to try to arrange as best he can a satisfactory market scheme. My correspondent continues:
The Nigerian cotton crop is best dealt with in the whole bulk, rather than in piecemeal lots. The Raw Cotton Commission have made a good job of sampling Nigerian cotton. paid a good price for the cotton, and sold it in reliable lots to cotton spinners at prices below its equivalent in American dollar cotton. There is a grave danger of Nigerian cotton eventually reaching foreign spinners, who in turn would look for reciprocal trade in Nigeria. We can take the whole of the Nigerian cotton crop and I am of the opinion that the Raw Cotton Commission are the only people capable of dealing with it in bulk.
One can readily appreciate from the terminology and phraseology of that communication that he is a man who knows what he is talking about.
I should like to call attention also to the very guarded statement made by Lord Derby several days ago at the annual meeting of the Empire Cotton Growing Association. Lord Derby is a free enterpriser, but it was obvious from his guarded statement that he was very much concerned about the course of Empire cotton and the consumption of Empire cotton in this country.

Mr. Blackburn: He needs to be.

Mr. Thornton: He does need to be, without any doubt. I would like to point out that for 50 years the development of Empire cotton was a very painfully slow process. It expanded hardly at all. And yet, during the period of cotton control and the Raw Cotton Commission, you had consumption of Colonial cotton, and Empire cotton increased two-fold or three-fold in the mills of Lancashire. I forecast, if this scheme goes through and the Raw Cotton Commission as a centralised buyer is eliminated, we shall not see a further expansion of colonial cotton growing. You will see a decline, and a substantial decline of importations into this country.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: As far as the figures for Uganda cotton were concerned, from 1929 to 1939 the growth of Uganda cotton was from 300,000 to 350,000 bales each year, and that has not diminished at all since 1940.

Mr. Thornton: I am not questioning the figures of the hon. Gentleman. I was talking collectively about the whole of Empire cotton production and colonial cotton production. The point made by the hon. Gentleman opposite does not upset the line of my argument. It cannot be denied. It is not a case being manufactured from this side. There is widespread concern, not only in Lancashire, but among all people who have at heart the future of our Colonial Territories. There is widespread concern about what the elimination of the Raw Cotton Commission will mean in the terms of colonial cotton development and the use of colonial cotton in the Lancashire spinning mills.
For good or evil—probably the latter—the old system is being reintroduced. I hope it succeeds. I say that advisedly, because, now that the course has been set on, the consequences of its failing are too serious and too great for too many people. Therefore, we can only hope that it succeeds. But there is need for caution, and I do urge the right hon. Gentleman and the Government to take every possible precaution. Our industry has been kicked about too much and too often. In these last 10 years it has had a prosperity to employers and to workers alike that it has never known before, and we are very jealous that nothing should be done to upset that situation.
Finally, I wish to put this point to the Minister in all seriousness. I understand that the Government believe in competition. In that case, why not have a bit of competition? Why not allow the Raw Cotton Commission to operate as merchant and seller for a year or two and let there be competition as between private merchant and private merchant and as betwen private merchant and the Commission? Why not keep the Raw Cotton Commission in existence in a modified form during this difficult transition period, having regard to the bad record of these Liverpool operators in the years between the wars and as a stimulus and a warning to those gentlemen that if they do not perform better in the post-war period than they did in the pre-war period then the Raw Cotton Commission is there to do the job properly, and to ensure the future prosperity of the cotton textile industry?

11.51 p.m.

Mr. Ian Horobin: Though one may only agree with the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) in some of the things he has said, at least his speech was in shining contrast to that of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), on which I will make only one comment. In the course of an involved and singularly unconvincing account of the bona fides of the Government in this matter, he committed himself to a statement that, from September, 1953, until now, the Raw Cotton Commission had had no useful functions left to perform.
The value of that speech as a contribution to a cotton debate can be judged from the simple fact that, from September, 1953, until the opening of the Liverpool market in May last, whether for spinners contracting in or for spinners contracting out, there was no form of cover for any of their activities except that provided by the Raw Cotton Commission. If that is not a useful function to perform, I do not know what we are discussing.

Mr. S. Silverman: I am sure the hon. Gentleman will allow me to point out that this reference to September, 1953, was not an invention of mine, but was taken from Section 1 of the Cotton Act. 1954, which I will not repeat now, and which took away from the Raw Cotton

Commission all the obligations of control and the other matters to which reference has been made. I said that since that date none of these obligations had been a legal obligation on the Commission.

Mr. Horobin: I think that I can leave it there.
Returning to the Order, I think it very necessary to remind hon. Members that, since the passing of the Act under which this Order is proposed to be made, the question of the dissolution of the Raw Cotton Commission has really not been in dispute. I am speaking now, not as a lawyer, but as a practical politician. What we are discussing is whether this is the appropriate time to issue this Order.
We had, in Committee on Clause 4, when this matter was subjected to a debate, the record of which occupies no fewer than 340 columns, a discussion whether the Raw Cotton Commission should have a permanent existence. At this hour and at this stage of the debate, it is, I submit, even if it were in order, a waste of time to re-hash all these general arguments on whether the Commission should be retained. We on this side appreciate that hon. Members opposite regret the dissolution of part of their Socialist structure for unified buying for the industry. As Shakespeare said:
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces … dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. Leave not a rack behind.
Actually the figure is about 87,000 bales.

Mr. H. Wilson: Will the hon. Member say how many of the 340 columns to which he referred were taken up by assurances by the Government that points which we had raised would be answered on the dissolution Order? Will he also say how many of the 340 columns took the form of statements by the Government that they had not reached any final decision on dissolution of the Commission but that there would be an obligation laid down that it should be debated at the appropriate time when the Bill received the Royal Assent?

Mr. Horobin: That is what we are doing. If the right hon. Gentleman cares to go through all those columns he can answer his own question. I am reminding the House that we have had an enormous amount of discussion. I am not complaining. What we are discussing tonight is whether this is an appropriate


time to take a step which was implicit in the Act we have passed.
Before coming to the main point we have to consider, I want to say something about two subsidiary but important matters. First, there is the question of the colonial contracts. Existing contracts clearly are protected in this Order. If it is said that under the new system the Government might prevent new contracts. I would point out that it could have done that even if the Order were not passed. A contract is entered into by two people, and whether this or any other Government, for good or bad reasons, refuses to enter into a new contract, whether this Order is passed or not, is irrelevant. Therefore, a good deal of what has been said tonight on this important question of colonial contracts is not relevant to the decision we have to reach.
The other matter to which I wish to refer is the question of staff. It might be argued, though I am glad to say that it has not been very seriously put forward, that this is not a good time to take this step because the position of the staff of the Commission has not been adequately protected. The answer to that is two-fold. The redundancy scheme, unanimously put forward by the Commission, of which two eminent trade unionists were members, has been held to be an extremely generous one. Secondly, I understand from such inquiries as I have been able to make that more than 50 per cent. and probably more than 60 per cent. of those going into the new organisation are from the Raw Cotton Commission. It seems that matters are working smoothly in regard to the staff.
Before I leave this matter of staff, I want to say this. If I am right in saying that, whatever our views, we are for the immediate future moving towards a state of things where more of the cotton is to be dealt with outside any conceivable Cotton Commission, are we really doing the remaining staff a good turn by encouraging them to hang on, so to speak to the very last gasp, to something which is quite clearly on the way out? For all those reasons, I do not think that any convincing case has been made out that we have not taken care, to the best of our power, of the remainder of these men and that this is a bad time to take this step.

Mr. Marquand: The liquidator is to continue operations on some contracts for

three years at least. What sort of staff is he to have, and who is to be encouraged to apply for the jobs on his staff if the hon. Gentleman is right in what he said just now?

Mr. Horobin: Surely the staff which the liquidator will require will be very different from that required by an organisation by which it is attempting to keep in being, so to speak, a complete alternative system of buying Lancashire's cotton. Along those lines, therefore, I do not think we need have any fear.
I want now to turn to what is much the most important part, the real crux, of what we have to consider. Have we reason to think that the new system is now so sufficiently assured of doing the job that we are well-advised to take this final step? That is linked up really with the question of stocks. Oddly enough it is linked with that in two ways, and there has been a good deal of confusion apparent in some of the remarks from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
It has never been altogether clear whether hon. Members opposite are afraid of there being too much or too little cotton. Sometimes the argument proceeds, roughly, on the lines that there will not be enough cotton in Lancashire and that the mills may be stopped through lack of it, and sometimes on the lines that there may be such terrific stocks of cotton overhanging us from America that the cover scheme will break down. I am not here taking a debating point, because theoretically it is possible that both of those apparently contradictory things could be true. I merely point out that there are two quite different—and indeed at first glance opposite—points to which we have to direct our attention. If the House will bear with me, I shall deal with them in turn.
Firstly, the question of whether there will be cotton available under this system—directly, physically present—for the mills to spin. I would put these conclusions very briefly to the House as conclusive. At the moment, anyone knowing Lancashire will agree that prima facie it is an odd argument, because the problem is not lack of cotton but lack of labour—not lack of cotton to spin but of people to spin it. There is nothing at the moment, in this year of 1954, to indicate that lack of cotton is an urgent reality or probability.
Secondly, we have now had two months' experience of the cotton market. I have made such inquiries as I can, and it is very significant that in all that time there has rarely been more than one point difference between buyer and seller. And a point, as I need hardly remind the House, is one-hundredth of a penny. Such a close market as that surely indicates that there cannot have been any very urgent demand for cotton which was not easily available. I can carry this argument further. If the people who are really concerned—the people who are buying this cotton—were getting anxious about their position could it possibly happen, as has been the case, that week after week since the market opened Liverpool cotton has been below parity? If it was the case that people were really getting anxious and were trying to get cotton across the Atlantic in a hurry, cotton would not be below its New York—Liverpool parity. It would be above it.
I admit that there are all sorts of complications in this matter that I cannot make that argument conclusive, but it is very strong prima facie evidence for saying that the people who really have to find the cotton, the people who buy the cotton on behalf of the mills, do not as a body think that they are going to be in a position wherein they will not be able to get it in the autumn.
The truth is that the whole pattern of buying has changed, and stocks are not required to the extent that they were. Here I should like to correct a mistake, which has been, somewhat to my surprise, fortified by the usually extremely careful approach of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). I do not remember his exact words, but I do not think he will challenge me when I say that the substance of them was that stocks were now lower than they had ever been since the Civil War, or something to that effect. But that statement is completely misleading.
Unfortunately, in most of those years that he was talking about, the consumption of cotton in this country and the whole scale of the cotton industry was much bigger than it is now. It is true that before the war, for very good reasons, stocks varied immensely from one time of year to another. I have looked up the 1937 figures and the 1938

figures. The 1939 position obviously was distorted. Roughly speaking, as against the 5½ months stocks that we have now, at the end of 1937 there were seven months stocks, and in 1938 there were six months stocks.
This is what has been misleading hon. Members opposite. Stocks are very much lower in proportion to what they were in the immediately post-war years, and that very fact was the cause of these enormous losses which the Cotton Commission has made. They are now very much less, and it is a very good thing. These enormous stocks were an extremely expensive and, in the result, terribly damaging way of dealing with cotton supplies in Lancashire. All that is happening, by and large, is that we have gone back very roughly to the sort of level of stocks in relation to consumption that we were used to before the war.
In fairness to the Raw Cotton Commission, it is true to say that one part of those very greatly inflated stocks was due to what one might call the strategic stock of Egyptian cotton which they held for reasons which are not altogether material. But by and large my point is incontrovertible.

Mr. H. Wilson: I am glad the hon. Gentleman mentioned the question of strategic stocks, because it is difficult to reconcile the argument that we are now listening to with the great emphasis which the Minister of State always places on maintaining large and excessive strategic stocks of many other raw materials. When the hon. Gentleman is talking about those pre-war stocks, does he not recognise two things; first, they were regarded in those days by the Board of Trade as inadequate, and the Board of Trade had to take very special measures to build up those stocks in 1938 and 1939, and indeed the Liverpool Cotton Exchange let the Board of Trade down. Secondly, does he not recognise that in those days there was no dollar crisis or prospective dollar crisis? Our reserves of gold and dollars were much higher than they are today, and it was always possible in those days to go out into the world and buy raw cotton which is not the position today.

Mr. Horobin: I do not think I would accept the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that before the war cotton stocks in this country could be held to be, by


and large, too low. I think hon. Members opposite have never really quite appreciated that the really important thing is not stocks that are physically present at any one moment in this country, but the stocks which are available to be got when spinners ask for them for any particular situation. That is what is happening now. Spinners have to make up their minds when they want their cotton. They have only to go to Liverpool, which will and is buying it for them, and it will be and is being delivered. The figures I have quoted prove that in fact the cotton has been available when it has been wanted, and not kept here in warehouses years before it is wanted, or when it may never be wanted and may have to be liquidated at an enormous loss.
I go further; I ask the House whether it is not a fact that now, under the conditions in which the Raw Cotton Commission will in any case have to work even if this Order is not passed, its continued existence is not an actual danger to the industry. The Commission is now in a dilemma; either it has to issue very frequent statements of the sizes of its stocks—in which case it is a sitting bird and the taxpayer is liable to immense losses—or it does not issue statements, in which case it is a direct threat to the operations of the organisation which in any case is now dealing with the majority of the cotton purchases.
That fact has been demonstrated within the last few days, when the first statement of its remaining stocks was made and it was found to be very much less than had been imagined. If hon. Members opposite are saying that the Raw Cotton Commission, handling the small amount of the market that it does, is going to be a safe repository of large stocks which can suddenly be called upon, they are leading Lancashire up the garden path, because the stocks will be very much less, and are very much less, than people imagined. I say that it is proved, as far as it can be, both by argument and experience, that this claim that we have chosen the wrong moment is not made out.
I should like to say a word about the danger of too much cotton breaking down the cover scheme. Once we pass this Order the only alternative cover for Lancashire spinners will very shortly be

the Liverpool market. If it is argued that this is a bad moment to pass this Order, because the Liverpool cotton market will not be able to give cover because it will not be able to absorb all the offerings—does the experience of the last few months bear out that argument? Certainly not. Over half a million straddles have been dealt with since the cotton market opened. It is working very smoothly. There has never been a 16 points change in price in a day, and about half the business has been done with New York, which is a complete vindication of the policy of the Government in relying on purely American contracts, because if it had not been for those American contracts 50 per cent. of the straddles would have come down in the Liverpool market, lowering the premium even further than it is now. Experience shows what those of us who know Lancashire would expect, that the opening of the Liverpool market has been surprisingly smooth; it is doing its job. Therefore, on this ground also the case against this Order is not made out.
I end with an appeal to hon. Members opposite. They have made their protests, and we quite understand their views, but would they not be serving Lancashire best by not pursuing their opposition further? It is immensely important that this new system should have a fair start and a fair trial. Lancashire has endless problems in front of it, with Japanese and Indian competition and the rest. We really cannot have this battledore and shuttlecock over the purchase of its raw material. We believe that it has got off to a fairly good start. We may be wrong, and if we are that may have to be put right, but why not give it a trial?
I would put this matter in its very simplest form, cutting out all the technicalities and the obligations. All we are doing in re-opening this Liverpool market and giving it a chance to work without this danger hanging over it from the continued existence of the Commission, is, as it were, to mobilise the collective judgment of the people concerned as to the best place and the best price at which to buy cotton upon which Lancashire lives. For my part, when it comes to collective judgment upon a matter exclusively concerned with cotton, I would take Lancashire's judgment against anybody's in the world.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn): rose in his place, and claimed to move," That the Question be now put."

Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — LEATHER GOODS COMPANY, BLACKBURN (PAPER BOARD)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Vosper.]

12.17 a.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: It is appropriate that I should have been successful in securing this Adjournment debate immediately after a discussion on the cotton industry because the case I want to make tonight concerns a firm in my constituency which helped to provide employment at a time when the prospects in the cotton industry were very uncertain; and it is a firm which deserves well of Blackburn because at the time cotton was severely depressed before the war it helped to provide jobs for Blackburn people. It also deserves well of the Government because, continuing the tradition of public service, it is now making a most useful contribution to the export drive.
I have been informed that the Minister of State, Board of Trade, has to deal with this matter as representing the Ministry of Materials, and I am sorry to keep the right hon. Gentleman so late defending a Department which is so soon to be defunct. I must also express my regret at giving him such a difficult task to do tonight, because to defend the record of the Ministry of Materials in this case is a very unpleasant job for any Minister to have to do.
When the Prime Minister announced the other day that the Ministry of Materials was to be wound up he paid a glowing tribute to his noble Friend who is the head of the Ministry, for the way he had conducted the Department I certainly cannot echo that tribute, because when the Ministry of Materials was responsible for controlling pulp and paper, and was severely restricting its import, the noble Lord did nothing whatsoever to help this firm, the Universal

Leather Goods Company, of Blackburn, which needed the materials for the export drive which it was carrying on. Perhaps the noble Lord did not help the firm because it was only a little one and the noble Lord has not got time to defend the interests of small firms in this country.
The Universal Leather Goods Company makes plastic handbags, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, and an essential ingredient in the manufacture of these handbags is paper board of a particular quality and substance which will bend to the shape of a bag and will be a sufficiently high quality product to be saleable on the American market. During the shortages which we experienced during the war this firm never failed to get supplies. Sometimes they asked me to approach the Board of Trade on their behalf when we had a Labour Administration. Never once did I fail to help them to meet their requirements, but since the present Government have been in office and there has been the policy of decontrol, it has been a very different story.
As recently as last December the firm wrote to me to explain that of 163 tons of paper board which they urgently required to manufacture this product for export they had been able to obtain only 93 tons from Thames Board Mills. Therefore, with the utmost confidence that once again I should be able to help them I wrote on their behalf to the Minister of Materials. I was greatly surprised to receive from the noble Lord a not only unhelpful but a positively offensive reply to my overtures on behalf of the firm.
On 20th December the noble Lord told me that the Government no longer controlled the distribution of board and he went on to lecture the firm:
From such enquiries as we have been able to make, it appears that the Universal Leather Goods Company were offered a long-term contract by their suppliers at a time when the latter were anxious for business, but the Universal Leather Goods Company were unwilling to close until it was too late. In this they were, of course, exercising their own business judgment as they were perfectly entitled to do, and they must stand by the consequences.
That is the reply of a noble Lord whose duty it was to see that industry had the materials that it required, and a reply in a different tone and temper from anything


that we had ever received from a Labour Government at a time when shortages were acute and unavoidable.
The Universal Leather Goods Company were, naturally, indignant at his reply, and they challenged the statement that at any time they had been offered a long-term contract by Thames Board Mills. I was so shocked by the reply that I asked to see the Minister of State, Board of Trade, because the firm pointed out that they were doing a job in the national interest in maintaining the export drive in a most difficult dollar market in the somewhat luxury product which handbags are. Anybody who knows anything at all about the trade and about exports knows that it is extremely difficult to get into the American market with a product like a plastic handbag. One must be efficient in production, keen in price and intelligent in organisation to hope to compete with Americans in a field like that.
When I saw the Minister he and the Board of Trade representatives who were present admitted that the Universal Leather Goods Company had done a first-class export job and had a very good record in this dollar field, but they said, "We do not control distribution of paper board any more. The Government have wound it up as part of the policy of decontrol and therefore we cannot do anything to help the firm to get supplies from Thames Board Mills, who tell us that they are full up with orders. Let them import Dutch straw." That was regardless of the fact that the price was higher, and that it was not of the quality which the firm required.
However, the Universal Leather Goods Company were desperate and were having to turn down orders from America. Therefore, they agreed to accept Board of Trade advice and they tried everywhere in Holland to get firms to supply them with Dutch board. They failed and I therefore wrote to the Minister in February and said that the firm had tried all kinds of sources of supply of Dutch board. I said that the matter was urgent and that we were losing dollar exports because of the Government's refusal to control the distribution of this very scarce raw material. On 10th February, I received from the Minister of State, Board of Trade, another of those high-handed Government replies. It stated:

I have had this case most carefully investigated, in consultation with the Minister of Materials. I am afraid, however, there is really nothing further that I can do, as Universal Leather Goods Company Ltd, are unable to obtain supplies from abroad and Thames Board Mills, Ltd. are already working to full capacity.
That is an absolutely intolerable reply from a Government who lecture British industry about the need for exports. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read it.
This firm was left in desperation to its own devices and it was unable to press ahead with the expansion of its export orders. Finally, through various efforts of its own, it managed to avert disaster by obtaining 20 tons of Dutch board. It had to buy the strawboard at a price 20 per cent. higher than the price of the Thames Board Mills product. When it got it it found that it was not of a quality satisfactory for the purpose for which the paper board is needed. The firm have written again to me and I have been seeking an opportunity to raise the matter in the House because of the total disregard of the Government for their responsibilities.
The only allocation which the firm received for the first six months of this year from Thames Board Mills was 33 tons of paper board, compared with its minimum requirement of 60 tons. Similarly, it has been told that its allocation for the second six months of this year will be about 50 per cent. of its requirements.
I make it clear that my complaint is not against the firm. I have discussed the matter fully with Thames Board Mills. I have discussed its position. I believe that the Thames Board Mills is trying to do a difficult job of allocating supplies as fairly as it can on information which it has got. Its production has been limited, partly by the disastrous flood which it suffered last year, partly—at one period—by a shortage of wood pulp and partly by a shortage of plant. It is doing its utmost to expand production and to get a new plant into operation.
In the meantime, it is following a system of allocation which is as fair as it can make it by giving all its customers a certain percentage of their past orders. The representatives of the firm explained to me, and I accepted their point of view. They said, "We cannot judge the priority


between the different orders. All firms come to us and say that their orders have priority. The Ministry of Supply comes to us with defence orders and food firms come with orders for packing cases for food supplies, and so on, which they claim to be equally urgently needed. It is not for us to judge between one and another."
I agree that it is not their duty to have to discriminate but it is the duty of the Government if they really are serious about the export drive. When I went round the firm's premises the other day I saw the paperboard being made up into cases for food, cosmetics and packages of soap powder and other consumer goods now on the market. This country cannot live by taking in its own washing. If we divert materials which are in short supply from the export drive to the satisfaction of the consumer market then what shall we do for consumer goods in the near future?
It is ludicrous to have a firm in a town like Blackburn—which has enough difficulties with the cotton trade—struggling to do a first-class job in a market which is difficult enough already when the paper board that it needs goes for the packaging of cosmetics. The Government have lost all sense of direction and of public responsibility when they stand by and, in the face of these repeated appeals for help, give arrogant answers of the kind I have quoted.
Everybody knows how difficult it is to break into the American market. One of the firm's difficulties is not only to get the paper board to make the handbags but to get more paper board to pack them in. American buyers will not take the handbags unless each is separately packed in a box with special arrangements to prevent the article from being damaged; but the firm cannot get the packaging materials with which to do the job.
I wish to say two things to the Government. If they are inviting this firm to buy foreign raw materials because they cannot get supplies from home, the least they can do is to give a rebate on the Import Duty which the firm has to pay on the strawboard they import. The import duty on Dutch strawboard is between 15 per cent. and 20 per cent.

ad valorem. The least the Government can do is to work out a drawback scheme whereby this firm will get a rebate on the product for which the raw material is required.
Even if that is done, even if an attempt is made to meet the financial difficulties of the firm, it will still not meet their basic problem of quality. The Thames Board Mills paper board is not only the cheapest product, but it is the best quality produce because it will bend. It is flexible and suitable for use in making the handbags for which it is designed. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that so far as quality is concerned the imported product is no substitute for this firm's product.
Raw material distribution by the Board of Trade was abandoned a long time ago. When my right hon. Friend, who was then the President of the Board of Trade, wound up the allocation scheme he made it perfectly clear that it did not mean that the Board of Trade washed its hands of all responsibility for seeing that priority needs were met. In fact, he made it clear that the Board of Trade would keep a watch on the situation, and intervene where necessary to see that firms got urgent supplies to keep employment going and help our exports. The record of the Ministry of Materials in this case is so bad that it is time the Ministry was wound up, because it has been worse than useless. I hope that under the transfer scheme which we are to have from 16th August, and now that the responsibility is to be solely centred in the Board of Trade, we shall have more effective action on behalf of British industry.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will tell me that from now on his Department will see that firms of this kind, who are doing a difficult job in the national interest, will get the backing of his Department as they did under the Labour Government. I hope that he will see that instead of paper board going to unessential consumer goods on the home market it will be used for the export drive and that the Universal Leather Goods Company will be able to get the supplies it so urgently needs.

Mr. F. P. Bishop: The hon. Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle) has indicated, as I understand, the difficulty of the Thames Board


Mills in meeting the requirements of this firm. Will she tell the House if that difficulty was due to any shortage of raw material that they needed for producing their product, or whether it is that they are, in fact, 100 per cent. occupied in production and the difficulty is in meeting the demand?

Mrs. Castle: At one time, Thames Board Mills were afraid that they would be held up by a shortage of wood pulp. That, I understand has not been the main problem, which is one of awaiting new plant coming into production. In the meantime, they are meeting all orders, irrespective of their nature, on a percentage basis. I am asking that the Board of Trade should give them guidance.

12.35 a.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Heathcoat Amory): I am sorry that the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle) believes that the Government have failed to assist an exporter in difficulties with raw material supplies. I wish to try to convince her of the contrary, to convince her that we have taken considerable pains to help in every reasonable way open to us. Anyway, I shall try not to give her an arrogant answer. I am extremely sorry if she felt that I did so before, because I very much dislike arrogant answers.
The Universal Leather Goods Company is doing a useful export trade in women's handbags, for which they have required strawboard, or chipboard, as the United Kingdom equivalent is called. I want to make this clear: it was in 1949 that the Government of the day—not this Government—decided that it would no longer continue detailed control of the end uses of paper and board, that is to say, the internal allocation of those commodities. As a result, since then every producer and importer has been free to dispose of his wares in whatever manner and to whatever customers he chooses.
In 1950 the post-Korea developments led to a shortage of paper and board, and at that time, I understand, discussions took place between the Government and trade associations as to what should be done, and if there should be a reversion to the allocation. Neither party then thought that it would be a good idea to restore that kind of control which had

been lifted a year before, and instead they started a voluntary priority scheme, which, according to the information I have, has since been in the main loyally observed by the traders, and which traders are at present trying to work to the best of their ability.
I want to say this about the Universal Leather Goods Company's own position. In 1951, when the firm were short of supplies, the Ministry intervened, and claimed the co-operation of the firm the hon. Lady has mentioned, the Thames Board Mills, with the result that at that time the firm were able to supply the Universal Leather Goods Company with 135 tons of chipboard for export orders. The Thames Board Mills would have been willing to maintain deliveries, I am assured, on that scale, and later definitely offered to do so, but in 1952 a decline in demand set in and the Universal Leather Goods Company for a time reduced their purchases from the Thames Board Mills, no doubt for commercial reasons.
The Thames Board Mills then asked the Universal Leather Goods Company, in fact urged them, to place continuing orders, because with business picking up again they saw a shortage of supplies coming along.

Mrs. Castle: I have gone into this very carefully. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman is aware, all firms reduced their orders in 1952, because they were all feeling the pinch of the depression. Therefore, they were in common with the others. In 1952 the Thames Board Mills sent out a circular letter suggesting that orders should be placed over a four-month period, not only giving the quantity required but the substance required too, to which the Universal Leather Goods Company said that they could not specify what substance they would require, above all because they did not know what lines were selling in America until the experts had been consulted.

Mr. Amory: I understand that, and as I said, it may have been for good commercial reasons. But it is the fact that the Thames Board Mills urged this company to place continuing orders if they possibly could.
When this trouble was brought to the Ministry's attention, the Ministry again tried to help. They asked the Thames


Board Mills to see whether any further supplies were available, but they found that the Thames Board Mills had such very big demands from all their customers that, with the best will in the world, they said then that they could not increase the quantities for the present. Then the Ministry supplied the names of two trade associations and five merchants in this country. I do not know whether the firm got in touch with them or not, but if so I presume that they failed to get additional quantities. Then the Ministry offered the firm facilities to import, but again I understand the firm found the foreign equivalents not quite suitable and higher in price.
Those were the things that the Ministry did, and I want to assure the hon. Lady that I cannot see anything else that the Ministry could do with the exception of reverting to the allocation of supplies in this country. The hon. Lady suggested, in effect, that we should direct supplies and give a priority to exports. But, to start with, it is extremely difficult to separate what is required for export from what is not. The trade is so complicated.
What we could not do is to put on a sort of allocation scheme for one firm only. What we did for one firm, if it were a statutory control, we should, of course, have to do for everyone. That would mean a return to rationing and price control, the kind of scheme discarded in 1949 and which the Government of the day considered again in 1950 and decided that it would not be a sensible thing to do.

Mrs. Castle: May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Amory: Certainly, if the hon. Lady will allow me a few minutes in which to finish.

Mrs. Castle: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will admit that the Board of Trade does, from time to time, show flexibility in the operation of its regulations, and that it does intervene specially in some cases in order to prevent unemployment or to help exports. That is what I am suggesting should be done.

Mr. Amory: It would be quite impossible for the Ministry of Materials to exercise a compulsory direction to discriminate in the case of one firm, however much we wanted to do so.
On the general situation, strawboard is in short supply not only in this country, but in others as well. It is being brought into the country on specific licences, and the licences issued in the latter half of 1954 show an increase over the past period. I understand that the licences which have been issued for the second half of this year will enable us to import all the strawboard that is available.
Regarding the production of chipboard in the United Kingdom, all the mills in this country are working at full capacity, with the exception of one mill where there is a breakdown at present. Fourteen firms are involved, and during the first five months of this year production represented an annual rate of 290,000 tons as against 214,000 tons in 1951, which shows that production is increasing. I understand that a further 50,000 tons are expected from August onwards as a result of a new machine starting up, and a further machine is to start up later. That means that the position will steadily improve.
The one thing which the hon. Lady has suggested is really something that, with the best will in the world, we simply could not do at present. We do not think that it would be in the national interest or in the interest of exports to bring back the direction of internal supplies. However much we should like to help this particular firm in the good export trade it is doing, that is something which I am afraid it would be simply impossible to consider doing.
I hope that what I have said will convince the hon. Lady that, short of the one thing for which she has asked, we really have done our best, and are anxious to go on doing our best, to help this firm. But to restore the control of internal supplies once again would not, as I have said, be a sensible thing to do, either in the national interest or in the interest of our export trade as a whole.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter to One o'Clock.